


Rollercoaster

by NuMo



Series: Curtains And Masks [3]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: AU, Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 17:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think this Q of yours is more of a romantic than you give him credit for.”</p><hr/><p>“Oh, Kathy, I told you back then that it would be to nothing but your advantage if you trusted me, and did you listen? Now look where it landed you that you didn’t.”</p><p>“In bed with someone I-” oh no, she won’t give him the satisfaction of saying that, no matter how expectantly his eyes light up. “-can’t possibly continue seeing, you mean?”</p><p>“Ah, but are you sure of that?” he has the nerve to ask.</p><p>“Q, you know perfectly well why this won’t work!”</p><p>“Enlighten me, ma Capitaine.”</p><hr/><p>Part Three of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/18811">"Curtains and Masks"</a> Series. I strongly suggest you read the other two first.</p><p>I don't own Star Trek nor anything connected with it, but I do own my own characters. I'm not making any profit, although I hope to reap some feedback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

_Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it?_

* * *

“You’ll go, and you’ll have fun, and you’ll stay off deck one for the next three days”, Chakotay’s words, even though he’d delivered them with a smile, are still ringing in her ears as Captain Kathryn Janeway makes her way to the turbolift. At least he’d had the decency to wait until they were in her ready room to utter them. The Doctor had been present, too, as back-up probably, a last-minute resort if she refused. Stepping into the ‘lift car, Janeway feels torn between helpless laughter, exasperation at the two officers’ solicitousness, or anger at their manipulation. That they’d practically conspired to send her on a three-day leave like this was as close as mutiny as she’d ever experienced – well, maybe that was taking it a little far. And yes, she _had_ been getting shorter with everyone lately. But then again, hadn’t that been a result of her latest ‘leave’?

She’d been gone four weeks, even if they’d translated into nine days in this, her, universe, and she’s still mad at Q, not for slowing time like he had, but for making her believe that it had stopped completely. ‘But my hands were tied, ma Capitaine’, indeed – and yet, part of her is grudgingly prepared to agree with his assumption that she would have insisted on being taken back instantly if she’d known. Even if things _had_ gone smoothly while she’d been away. Even if Chakotay, damn him, has joked just now that he could get used to her being away from time to time. 

But that isn’t the real reason she’s been angry, is it. She’s read the reports, had the briefings, talked everything over with her first officer. When she’d continued pushing herself and everyone else, he’d raised his eyebrows, then he’d confronted her, and now, this. 

“You miss him, don’t you?” he’d had the nerve to ask her, over dinner four nights after she’d been back, and that is another thing she would kill Q for, one of these days. Apparently the omnipotent being had told the complete senior staff why he’d spirited her away like he had. ‘To find someone’. Janeway huffs at the memory, at what her crew has made of it, at the thought that Tom had probably opened a betting pool a mere seconds later, at completely not caring what might have happened to it when she’d come back alone. As if there was no one to be found right here, in her universe, in her time. She clamps down quite firmly on the same treacherous part of before when it wonders why she hasn’t got anyone, then. 

She’d changed the subject, back then, complimenting Chakotay on his cooking, silently yearning for another cook, another dinner companion; not that he wasn’t… agreeable. But he hadn’t been- she’d stopped that thought with a sigh of regret. One more door she’d need to keep shut. He’d accepted her evasion, had only looked at her with understanding in his eyes, so similar to – _good grief, Janeway_ , she’d thought, _get a hold of yourself, will you. It’s over, and really, it’s just as well. How on Earth did Q suppose this could ever have worked out, anyway?_ Her comments, after that thought, had been a bit more… acerbic, maybe, that night. More than his companionship warranted, certainly, but he’d born it with remarkable equanimity. 

But this, now. After three weeks in which she’d done her best not to dwell on that particular bunch of memories anymore – this… conspiracy. Even if the stretch of space they’re traversing is quiet, boring even. Even if she _has_ done all her homework on the time she’d been away. Even if, after unraveling the Gordian Knot of the Doctor’s holonovel and its repercussions, it is a good time to relax, kick back, take time off – did he have to measure it in _days_? What is she supposed to do, with three days of nothing to do? 

“Please state your destination”, the computer asks quite patiently, and suddenly Janeway wonders how long she’s been standing here like that. 

Well, how about actually taking her first officer up on his words? Maybe if she went straight away, he wouldn’t object if she cut this short. “Computer, are the holodecks currently in use?”

“Holodeck one is unoccupied at this moment.”

“Deck six, then.” It’s taken a remarkably short time to get used to inertial dampeners again, Janeway muses, then curses her thoughts that seem intent to return to those four weeks the moment she relaxes her control over them. When the car stops on deck three, she inclines her head to greet Tom Paris, who’s calling out his destination already, barely inside. 

“Eleven!” He turns and grins at her, his undaunted, affable smile, and she can’t help but respond with a twist of her own lips. “Going to the holodeck?” He’s in on it, too, then? Well, he isn’t getting anything but a raised eyebrow, to make of what he wants to. Not enough to deter him, though, apparently. “As a matter of fact, Captain, I was wondering if you might want to enjoy my latest creation. Don’t worry”, he holds up both hands, “nothing black-and-white. Just a small, sporty, speedy, exhilarating experience, with lots of things to keep you occupied. Paris eighty-three.” She raises both eyebrows at this. Just how many programs does he have? His grin widens. “It’ll give you all necessary gear, too, so you can go right away, if you want to.” 

“You know, Lieutenant”, she taps the side of her chin musingly, then levels that finger at him, “I just might.”

“Great!” The ‘lift car stops at her deck, and as she leaves, she hears him call after her, “just remember to call for the arch if you want to return – but when you do, you’ll have to leave for good.” And with a wink and a hiss of doors, he’s gone. Now what has _that_ been about?

Arriving at the holodeck entrance, Janeway snorts again, softly. _Reserved timeslot Janeway, Captain Kathryn: seventy-two hours_. Just what is she supposed to do with three days of holodeck time, and why in the nine circles of hell did Chakotay sign off such an extravagant allotment? And where had he found the hours anyway? They can’t come from his account alone. She tries to compute the number of participants necessary to pool such a ridiculous amount of holodeck time and throws up her hands in frustration when she realizes how many there must have been. _That conspiracy is more widespread than I thought._ For a second, she debates contacting him, calling him out. Then her curiosity about the program Paris has hinted at wins out and she loads it with a quick command. 

“Program complete.”

The door swooshes open to reveal a fine, cool, blue morning, washed clean as only spring on Earth can be. White-blooming bushes edge a… parking lot? _Paris and his penchant for the twentieth_ , Janeway thinks, shaking her head. There’s even a vehicle there, but it’s patently not a car. _Oh, good grief._ A sleek, steel-blue motorbike, fast-looking, sexy in a piston-and-machine-oil kind of way, practically leers at her, and it’s then that Janeway realizes her uniform has changed into biking leathers, or rather a synthetic, more breathable version of them, yet far, far too figure-hugging. _One of these days, Mister Paris_ , Janeway vows silently as she picks up the flip-face helmet, hoping the program includes a trainer, and the door swooshes close.


	2. April 23rd

The scent of blackthorn is sweet and heavy in my nose when I walk out of Julia’s apartment building, my bag slung over my shoulder. The weather forecast (sunny, not too warm) couldn’t be finer for a day on a motorbike, and I’m excited as I’ve rarely been, these past nine weeks. I’ve finally stopped seeing Kathryn’s face on every slender, short, auburn-haired woman I see, even though I certainly haven’t stopped hurting. 

So when I spot the slender, short, auburn-haired figure next to my bike, I tell my heart to go on beating. Just a coincidence, right? Another biker, probably, admiring my Beemer – well, not mine, as such, but at least for today. And certainly admirable. The other biker probably thinks so, too, circling the machine slowly, almost reverently, and I can totally relate. When Julia offered to take it to go on this vacation, I could have hugged her – well, I did. The bike’s quite new, barely two years, and I’ve been dying to have a go on it ever since I saw it. The trial run a week ago left me grinning wildly, and it also, handily, established that Julia’s helmet, new and completely integrated with the bike’s comm. system – hell, but she’s really gone all out with this, hasn’t she? – fits me as well as my old gear still does. Since then I’ve spent hours concocting playlists for the ride, exhilarated by the possibility of listening to them on the way.

This other biker is clad in newer gear, but carries the same helmet as I do. I crane my neck to see her bike, but she seems to have parked it somewhere else. Her motions as she walks around my bike (easy to think of it as such, rather than ‘the bike Julia lent me’, isn’t it?) do seem familiar, and I quickly shake my head to rid it of that illusion. Then she looks up, alerted by that movement or my footfalls, I don’t know which, and I certainly don’t care because when she does, my heart skips and stops and restarts with a pang and a flutter.

Kathryn.

The helmet, slipping from my nerveless fingers, meets the ground with a clatter, and the bag quickly, if more quietly, follows suit. My mouth drops open, her eyes widen, and I don’t know who started to move, but when we meet, in the middle of a goddamned parking lot, she embraces me so fiercely that I swear it leaves fabric burns, not that I don’t reciprocate in like manner.

We’re both teary-eyed, we both choke each other’s name, we both stare at each other’s face in a mixture of disbelief and sheer bliss. We both move forwards simultaneously, as if hypnotized, and she still tastes of coffee, and my heart sings and dances for the bitter aroma, for the smell of blackthorn and her hair, for the soft, strangled noise she makes when I withdraw, grinning fit to split my head.

“I think this Q of yours is more of a romantic than you give him credit for”, I manage to get out between gasps of breathless laughter, then I give in and hug her again, lifting her and swinging her around with a whoop of exuberance. I can’t get enough of touching her, holding her, tasting and inhaling her, looking at her even if my heart stumbles again when I see how shaken she is, but still – I need to reassure myself with every sense that she’s really, truly here, here in my arms. I hold her and intend to never let her go again _ever_ , and she clings to me in much the same way for a few heartbeats.

Then what I said seems to impact on her mind for the first time, and I can’t help grinning when the familiar glare reasserts his hold on her features, much more so because I know it’s not meant for me. 

“Uh-oh”, I say with a mock quake, “That look spells trouble for someone – oh, do stop glaring, Captain Kathryn.” And indeed, she – well, she doesn’t stop, her glare just gains another quality, but I would happily spend the next ten years just being glared at by her, so I simply go on, “I _have_ been thinking how perfect it would be if you came on this vacation, ever since we started planning it, you know? Apparently, Q’s heard me. Or read my mind, or whatever.”

“Vacation?” It’s the first real thing she says, apart from my name in gasps and various tones of disbelief, and again, I can’t stop my grin. I might be bubbling, but how can I not, when I’m so happy to see her, fully kitted out and quite obviously meant to come?

“We’re ringing out winter and ringing in spring, with four days of skiing and assorted activities in Austria, and another four days in northern Italy where we’ll spoil ourselves rotten on spring’s first strawberries, autumn’s best wines, and more food than can be good for us.”

“And all that with what’s in this bike’s boxes?” Oh, she tries for a skeptical, I’m-in-complete-control approach, but I can tell how the idea thrills her by the sparkle in her eyes. Yes, she’s warming to this, and I don’t care if it’s the though of strawberries or skiing that’s doing the trick.

“Of course not. The girls are already down there with most of my stuff; I had to work till yesterday, and Anna’s car couldn’t hold any more passengers, with the four of them and all our gear, so Julia gracefully lent me her bike, provided I don’t crash it and pay for the gas.” I look over my shoulder at the bag on the ground. “Those are just the necessities, you see.”

“Necessities? Well, in that case, it does seem a bit much, doesn’t it?” Her eyebrow lifts, and I clamp down on a squeal. She knows how I love that, I just know she does, and I’m certain she’s doing it on purpose, just as happy to see me as I am to see her, even if she doesn’t say the words; I just know she is. 

“Well, since I planned to enjoy the ride to the fullest, I figured I better take a change of clothes and overnight stuff just in case it takes me longer than anticipated.” I shrug, playing along. “Plus I won’t go anywhere without my laptop and my chocolate spread, but you knew that, didn’t you.” At least at this, now, makes her smile, and when I open the pannier to put my bag in, and she sees the jar that I’ve brought indeed, she laughs out loud, and it takes a lot of lines off her face. 

Something changes in her face when she notices my attention to it. It… closes, and her jaws work for a moment, and for just that long I’m afraid she’s going to turn and run, to wherever. Suddenly, she pulls me close, holds me tight. “I missed you”, she whispers, one of her hands buried in my hair, the other clenched around my shoulder. Then, just as quickly, she straightens, lets go, steps back, a picture of composure again. My smile turns into a grin as I cock my head, teasing her with a sparkle in my eyes that I’ve missed more than I can say.

“So did I, Captain Kathryn. So did I.” Just to see her glare at me again.

* * *

Kathryn half-listens as the younger woman explains how the helmet and its intercom works, explains how to ride pillion and where to hold on, explains how they’ll take scenic route to a list of places that don’t ring any bells for her. 

Q. Damn him, and yet she can’t, can she, not when there are goddamn _butterflies_ in her stomach and she’s happier than she’s been in weeks. Program Paris eighty-three indeed. Hadn’t Tom been on the bridge when she left for her ready room, anyway? At least that comment about calling for the arch and returning for good makes sense, now. For good. The words leave a very heavy feeling. On the other hand, the holodeck _has_ been reserved for three consecutive days, even if she’s quite certain she isn’t in it, isn’t even on _Voyager_ anymore. And if she compares the amount of time Marie’s mentioned has passed with her own memory, three days and eight days fit easily enough. If it is that simple.

She almost feels happy enough to forgive him, too, for his comment when he’d returned her to _Voyager_. Misplaced self-negation, indeed. The word ‘stubborn’ had featured quite prominently in his diatribe, too, as well as multiple and expansive gestures eloquently emphasizing his points – which he hadn’t had. Or had he? She does feel good in Marie’s company, and she has missed the younger woman’s teasing, her laughing, chocolate-colored eyes. But how is this supposed to go on? She can’t think of Marie as a holo-program any more than she can think of Michael Sullivan as a living person, and when she’ll leave this – whatever it is – then it’ll be ‘for good’, he’s said so himself. 

So what is she supposed to do now? 

“Are you coming?” Marie’s chortle disturbs her musings. Seeing her already on the bike, helmet’s visor flipped up, Kathryn pushes those musings aside, to deal with later.

“Where are your glasses?” she notices suddenly.

“Wearing contact lenses, aren’t I? I can’t when I’m working with a computer, but I like it much better for driving or skiing or stuff like that.”

“And nothing slips down your nose, right?”

“So you noticed that, didn’t you?”

“How could I not. I lost count how many times you pushed your glasses up each day.” And how sweet that gesture had been, too; lost in thought sometimes, pointed and deliberate at others. Marie grins again, then snaps her visor down as Kathryn climbs into place behind her, the movement clumsy with newness, and dons her own helmet, securing its strap meticulously. At least that motion comes a little more fluently after Marie’s made her practice it, just now.

“Knock, knock”, Marie’s voice sounds in Kathryn’s ears, a little distorted. 

“I’m not going to ask who’s there, you know.” A chortle answers her. Then, suddenly, loud music blares from the earphones, startling her.

“Whoa”, Marie blurts as well, nicely audible over the song as she quickly tunes it down. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, that’s quite alright. Music is a good idea, anyway.” They’ve listened to music at Marie’s place almost every night, and Kathryn had liked the younger woman’s choices, and how she’d attuned them to their moods or… activities.

“Isn’t it, though?” There’s pride in Marie’s voice as she describes how the system integrates what she calls satnav, which Kathryn supposes means early automatic navigation, intercom and music, and how she’s been up all night perfecting playlists, exciting songs for federal roads and more placid ones for cruising along the ‘autobahn’. Marie obviously expects Kathryn to know that last word, even though it doesn’t mean a thing to her, and Kathryn frowns for a heartbeat when she realizes that the universal translator has apparently taken time off duty, too. Then she decides it doesn’t really matter, because it didn’t last time, either, did it. She takes it off and zips it into a pocket.

The music sounds indeed quite mellow to her when they start their journey, and when they reach a four-, then six-lane highway designated A555 on big blue signs, Kathryn figures this must be the autobahn Marie was referring to. And yet Marie seems to be steering manually, still. When did they invent computerized navigation, anyway? Late twenty-first, early twenty-second, wasn’t it? At any rate, Marie seems to handle this machine well enough, and it feels… nice, to hug her from behind, feel her body work the bike into turns, feel her brace for de- or acceleration a moment before it happens. The bike’s pillion seat is a bit elevated, so Kathryn can see where they’re going, and the sun is on their left, and there’s not much traffic, and when Marie asks if it would be okay if they went a little faster, Kathryn agrees wholeheartedly – not realizing what the younger woman has in mind, or the bike in store. 

“Hold on tight, then”, Marie instructs her, and Kathryn grabs her waist more securely, and-

“Whoa”, it’s Kathryn’s turn to blurt as the bike’s acceleration yanks at her, and the exclamation is answered by a whoop over the intercom.

Then, quickly, solicitously: “You okay with the speed?”, followed by a chuckle and, “right, sorry, I forgot. You’re going faster than light all day anyway, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but I’m surrounded by seven hundred thousand tons of starship when I do, and protected by inertial dampeners so as not to end up ‘stains on the back wall’, as my helmsman so succinctly puts it”, Kathryn drawls, to further chuckling. “But yes, I do like the way you drive. Dampeners can get boring, you see.” 

That, apparently, is all the encouragement Marie needs. They tear through the morning at a hundred and thirty kilometers per hour, faster than that even in a couple of elegantly executed overtaking maneuvers, and Marie’s voice, far smoother than Kathryn’s has ever been, but alto just the same, sings along to mellow songs in a very familiar way.

* * *

We leave the autobahn some seventy kilometers after the Koblenz interchange, for a federal road that winds nicely through fields and forest, sun-dappled and decked out with the light green of new leaves. As almost any road in this area would, it cuts down to the Rhine Valley in a series of wicked switchbacks that are fun to negotiate on a bike like this, and Kathryn actually whoops and leans into them with abandon. I’ve flipped to the ‘exciting’ playlist when we left the autobahn behind, and right now George Michael sings about freedom, and rolling stones, and the song’s pounding rhythm pushes us along. Having the Rhine Valley suddenly open up in front of you is breathtaking even for me who knows the sight, and Kathryn hugs me more firmly, her gasp plain even over intercom and music. 

The landscape is sweet here still; lush and verdant and gentle, but castle-topped hills are already encroaching upon the river, pushing it into a tight, green, coniferous corset. Heading south from here, we’ll pass through the Rhine Gorge, or Upper Middle Rhine Valley, World Heritage Site since a few years and well deserving of the honor, and yes, I’d totally have taken this route if I’d been on my own, too, even though it’s slower going. But who cares, on a road that runs parallel to the river’s course, a new view appearing with every curve we take. We’re passing the Hostile Brothers, two castles right next to one another which, despite their designation, have probably never engaged in direct confrontation, and I tune the music down to tell Kathryn about them. Next are Castles Katz and Maus (and yes, they’re named like that on purpose), and the beautiful ruins of Rheinfels and Reichenberg. And the Loreley, of course. 

We stop opposite the imposing crag after buying breakfast rolls in St. Goar, and watch Father Rhine, turbid and turbulent after two weeks of rain, churning through this narrowest part of his journey. I tell Kathryn the legend of the water sprite that supposedly lives up on the beak of rock that bears her name, combing her golden hair and luring shipmen to their death with her singing. The tight bend of the river and the rocks submerged at this point have ever been the most dangerous part of any ship’s journey on the Rhine, in fact, and the last big accident happened just over a year ago, even if people blame winter’s high waters now rather than supernatural intervention. A cruise ship passes, playing the famous song in greeting, and Kathryn’s eyes grow wide.

“My father used to sing this, every once in a while…” she breathes. “I never knew…”

Well, so did mine, which is why I know enough of the lyrics to sing along, which is why I do, while her eyes fill, riveted on the precipice throwing its stark shadow across the river. When I stop, she turns and embraces me, and I can feel her shoulders tremble with tension.

“I never told you…” she breaks off. It seems she still can’t. 

“I know”, I tell her softly. “I knew.” Her head snaps back and her eyes come up to my face, hesitant, probing. Open. “You left your sketchbook behind”, I elaborate. “The only thing of yours that stayed, in fact.” Well, it hadn’t really been hers, either, if you wanted to nitpick – still. It had stayed behind, and floored me when I’d found it on my desk.

“You found it?” she grates.

“I opened it”, I confess, and my throat is tight, too, when I remember leafing through sketch after sketch, struck to the core by what I saw. Sure, there’d been some sketches in there of ships on the Rhine, of the Cathedral, of the view from my apartment. But the majority had a far more personal subject, and left no doubt about Kathryn’s feelings for it, either. I knew, then, the reason why I’d heard a pencil scribbling after she’d retreated to my sofa, some nights, and I knew, then, that she must have left that sofa from time to time, to sit more closely to where I slept. 

Still, I can’t resist teasing her a little. “Don’t tell me you didn’t realize until after you left.”

“Marie, I… but you _know_ I’m not good at talking about these things!” Not exasperated, yet, and I relent a little before she can become so.

“I’m not talking about talking about it, just about realizing.”

“I… well.” She turns away, looks up at the Loreley rock once more, and I take a step to stand behind her, even dare to embrace her gently when she doesn’t move away, offering apology and reassurance in body-language before I can think of words to the same effect. Keep it simple, I tell myself, and suddenly the solution, not just simple, but practically elegant, presents itself.

“I love you, Kathryn. Hell, I missed you, more than I can say, and from the way you crushed me to death this morning I believe you missed me, too.”

“I did. I…” again, her voice falls silent, and this time I don’t take up the loose thread but leave it to flutter in the breeze that stirs her hair. “I do love you, too, Marie.” I can barely hear her voice over the sound of the wind, and cars passing by, and the cruise ship’s engines, but hear it I do.

“And you’re telling me now in case you’re whisked away again, with me none the wiser and stooped over your sketches, ruining them with my tears?” The words are teasing, but my voice is gentle, still, and when she whirls around and replies “you didn’t!”, trying to sound scandalized, I shake my head no and we share a, yes, a loving smile. 

No, that sketchbook is my prized possession; hell, I even took it with me on this journey – it sits snugly in one of the panniers, right next to my laptop. Call me daft, call me romantic, but after nine weeks of desperately missing her I couldn’t have left that sketchbook behind if my life had depended on it. When I tell her, laughter seeps back into her eyes, and her smile turns teasing, and a bit of the ever-present tension vanishes from her shoulders and her face. More, when I cradle her face in my hands and kiss her, aching to the point of tears, and so full of joy I could burst. Her hands come up and clench around my wrists, then wander along my arms to pull me close. I can feel something changing in her, slowly; slowly. Even though we’re touching at the moment, and have touched for hours on the bike, there’s been something between us ever since this morning, and it’s starting to melt now, in that spring breeze coming up the Rhine Gorge.

* * *

The landscape is remarkable, and Kathryn is delighted with the detour when they pass castle after castle and too many picturesque little towns to tell apart. They even cross the river on a ferry, past a long-drawn out little island – Kathryn hadn’t known there were islands in the Rhine, although, truth to tell, there isn’t much she knows about the Rhine at all. There’s another little fortress even, not much more than a tower, on one of those islands, one that is barely larger than the tower’s foundations. The tower itself has been redone in red and white, and it’s so impossibly pretty that Kathryn understands the tourist appeal of this area even as Marie deeply mocks the region’s pandering to them.

Sitting behind Marie, hugging her from behind, leaning against her back at times, feels… Kathryn is at a loss to categorize it. Home, in a way; exhilarating, too; almost frightening in how quickly her heart beats whenever she thinks about Marie’s ‘I love you’, and her response to it. And always, always, like thunderclouds on the horizon, the words ‘for good’. Far easier to get lost in Marie’s singing, and in the landscape zipping by.

After a while the scenery gets industrial and they rejoin the autobahn, and still another while later, jet planes, ancient to Kathryn’s eyes, scream by overhead and the name Frankfurt on the autobahn’s blue signs rings a dim bell in her memory. Then buildings start to stretch for hundreds of meters on their right hand, and on their left, a huge cruise ship has Kathryn craning her neck for a river or canal until she notices it’s not a ship at all but a building, stilted atop a train station. Impressive. While the place certainly can’t hold a candle to San Francisco spaceport, still, to people of this century it probably feels huge, and brand-new. 

“Wanna grab a bite?” Marie’s voice sounds over the song currently playing on the intercom, something with wacky lyrics of minnows dreaming and a lovely, lilting melody.

“At the airport?” It sounds crazy, and yet the idea of seeing this place, so state-of-the-art in Marie’s view, so antiquated in Kathryn’s terms, is fascinating. “Why don’t we?”

Traffic is heavier here and she’s amazed at how undaunted Marie seems to be, weaving through it. There’d been a lot of cars in twentieth-century San Francisco, too, but not this many, not this _fast_. Not by far. And compared to what little the twenty-fourth century has in terms of individual transportation, this is pure, unadulterated madness. People aren’t keeping a modicum of distance, nor even paying attention to what’s going on, it seems, and sitting on a bike feels decidedly… exposed. Marie dodges a car that swerves onto her lane with a few heartfelt, probably very unflattering comments in German, but then they’re off the highway, and she steers the bike safely through the airport’s access lanes until they find a place to park. 

“God, I haven’t been here in ages”, the younger woman breathes, taking off the helmet and running a hand through her curls. Kathryn follows suit, and Marie laughs suddenly. “That bad?”

Kathryn looks at her, baffled. 

“That breath sounded as if you’ve held it for a long, long time. And you’re crackling.” Marie grabs Kathryn’s shoulders and kneads for a moment, and good grief, but they _are_ tense. “And I’ve seen that look before, you know. I know driving in Germany can feel wild, but it’s going to be easier once we leave Frankfurt behind.”

“God, _please_.” Marie laughs again at the obvious relief in Kathryn’s voice, and proceeds to tell her wild stories about Germany’s highways and how people actually come from abroad in rental cars to speed along them. It all sounds very irresponsible to Kathryn, even though there certainly is a thrill in going this fast without dampeners, or force fields, or remote controlled navigation. And yet she can’t forget how defenseless she’s felt when that car had come so close. Would safety protocols have kicked in if Marie hadn’t been so quick to react? Are they on a holodeck? Not a reassuring thought, that.

“What did you call him, anyway?”

“Wh- oh, that driver?” Marie grins. “First I called him Penner, to take the steam off”, and yes, the word sounds powerful enough for that, with the p exploding sharply, “and then I called him a Drecksack for good measure.”

“Which means…?” They’re entering the airport proper, and Kathryn looks around with eager eyes instead, intent on taking in as much as she can.

“Oh, I shouldn’t go around teaching you German swearwords, now, should I?”

Kathryn raises an eyebrow dryly. “Too late, Miss Vey. Spill it.”

“Yes, Captain Kathryn, _sir_.” Oh the insolent grin. Kathryn aims a half-hearted swipe at Marie’s arm, stifling a laugh. “Drecksack is scumbag”, Marie laughs, evading Kathryn’s hand easily, “and Penner means… uh… sleepy-head, only not quite so… friendly.” Kathryn does laugh at this. No, it certainly hadn’t sounded very friendly, and sleepy-head does fit; that driver had certainly not been very attentive. 

Glad to stretch their legs, they roam the arrival and departure halls, so familiar with hurrying people, bulky luggage and crass commerce, and yet so… outdated in terms of technology and design. Seeing it through Marie’s eyes, and listening to her explanations of passport controls and security measures, Kathryn detects several things that might lead to technology she knows, and her scientist’s mind longs for a tricorder, or even a simple camera. Chakotay would love this – live action anthropology, living, breathing history. And Tom – oh, Tom would have a field day. 

They linger at a visitor’s viewpoint to watch more antiquity – there are even propeller-driven aircraft way back there – over an abominable cup of coffee, then take a broad skywalk to reach that cruise ship-slash-business center, and eat take-away food that’s not much better, on its topmost floor. 

“Sorry for that”, Marie apologizes, clearly distraught at the lackluster quality. 

Kathryn waves a dismissive hand. “I’ve had worse, and at least the view is good. And the company”, she adds, and is rewarded with rolling eyes over a beaming smile.

“Did I tell you I got lost in an airport once when I was four years old?” Marie asks, balancing a lump of rice on her chopsticks.

“No – over there?” Kathryn, pointing with her spoon, doesn’t even want to imagine losing an adult in this maze of a place, much less a pre-school kid.

“Worse. In Spain. Even though the airport was much smaller, my parents didn’t know a word of Spanish, and here I was, gone, and the flight already called. They split up, and finally found me on the visitor’s terrace, watching arriving planes, oblivious to anything around me.”

“Sounds like you, certainly.” Kathryn’s mouth quirks.

Marie grins. “As a matter of fact, I can’t remember a thing about it. I know just because they told me so often – you know how it is; ‘remember when…’ followed by dire admonishments to pay attention to things.” She rolls her eyes but keeps the grin. “Why do you think I like my smartphone so much? It has this app that returns me to where I started. If I remember to start the app, that is.” It appears she hasn’t done so today, still she steers their steps back to the bike quite confidently. 

“Did you talk to your parents, at all?” Kathryn asks her on a whim, when they pass another of those obviously franchised restaurants.

“Huh? Oh.” Marie frowns, then sighs. “Uh, no, I didn’t. What would I have told them, anyway? I fell in love with a gorgeous, brilliant, wonderful woman, and she’s a starship captain, and now she’s gone?” The grin is back, and now it’s Kathryn’s turn to roll her eyes. 

“Thanks for the flattery, but what I _meant_ -” 

“I know.” They’re back at the parking lot by now, and Marie leans against the bike and heaves another sigh, more heartfelt this time. “No. My grandfather isn’t doing too well at the moment, which I guess I’ve taken as another welcome excuse not to broach the subject.”

“Your grandfather? You never talked about him.” 

“I didn’t, did I?” Marie looks at Kathryn askance, eyebrows raised. “He’s my only surviving grandparent, and I love him very much. He’s cute, really, although he suffered very badly when my grandmother died, eight years ago. Ever since then, he hasn’t answered ‘fine’ when you ask him how he is. He says how can he, when his partner of over fifty years is gone? So he says he’s content, instead.” There’s a catch in Marie’s voice, and Kathryn’s throat feels tight, too. 

“My mother has said something similar, once.” They’re both silent for a minute, lost in their thoughts, until Marie huffs a laugh. 

“Look at us, all gloomy. Let’s get back in the sunshine, Captain Coffee Bean; the world’s waiting!”

Laughing at the grandiose statement, Kathryn complies.

They make their way south-east, to judge by the sun on their right, then change to another highway that runs straight south. It’s indeed emptier, by far, and the tarmac sings beneath the wheels as fields, orchards and meadows zip by. This is soft country, smoothly rolling, almost complacent in its rurality. They pass another two large interchanges but continue down south, stopping only to refuel on gas and predictably mediocre gas station coffee, until slowly the landscape folds upwards again and Kathryn suddenly realizes the white haze on the horizon in front of them must be the Alps, shaking her head when the view drives home that she’s had no idea of the distances involved nor of how their speed has translated into headway. 

It’s strange, really. They must have traveled hundreds of kilometers today, something that hasn’t been common practice ever since transporter hubs and cabins were invented. Kathryn has no clue as to where she is except ‘somewhere in Germany where you can see the Alps’, and she’s not even certain they still are in Germany. Wasn’t there another country in the Alps? Switzerland? Austria? Both? They hadn’t crossed a border, had they? The thought of border controls… are there still border controls? She certainly doesn’t have a passport; but Marie knows that, doesn’t she? She had mentioned Austria, and Italy, too, right? And those had been sovereign countries at the beginning of the twenty-first, if Kathryn remembers correctly. On the other hand, that had been after… so it might be different, here. 

And just to top things off, Kathryn has no idea where they’re going or how to get there if Marie weren’t driving, not only in that she doesn’t know the way, but also in that she doesn’t know the first thing about how to drive a motorbike. All of this should, by rights, translate into feeling completely… dependent, and yet… and yet Kathryn’s content to continue like this. Marie knows what she’s doing, and where they’re going, and for once it’s nice to take the back seat, as it were. 

The mountains are clearly discernible, almost on top of them, when Marie turns from the highway once more. They pass another industrial area (the way they cluster around every major city’s outskirts seems to be a constant over the centuries), cross a bridge over a river that’s milky with sediment, drive around a wide bend in the road and-

“Now _that_ is certainly the most stunning setting for a castle I’ve ever seen”, Kathryn blurts, all thoughts of passports and borders forgotten. The castle sits on an outcrop of rock, its walls almost blindingly white against a backdrop of dark green trees and looming, grey rock. It looks like something out of a fairytale, weightless, fantastic, especially when Kathryn compares it to the grey and craggy castles they’ve seen all morning.

“Welcome to Neuschwanstein, Kathryn. I’d figured since we’re passing not ten kilometers from it, I should at least take you to look at it. We might even be in time to catch a tour, if we’re lucky.”

They are. Kathryn laughs when Marie exits the ticket center, waving their two chits excitedly. The steep, winding footpath that runs up to the castle is a welcome change from sitting on a bike all afternoon, even though they’re both huffing and puffing in minutes. Once up, though, the view is spectacular; from Alpine hills to their left, the landscape falls in a dark green, wildly bunched-up tapestry of coniferous knolls and hills, four lakes set among them like colored pearls, varying from deep blue-black over emerald green to milky white. Between two of them, the other castle, the one that literally towered above the ticket center barely twenty minutes ago, looks like a child’s plaything now. Small wonder whichever-king-it-was wanted to build a castle here, Kathryn thinks.

Amidst throngs of tourists from every human ethnicity, they’re ushered through room after room, each more imposing and impossible than the last. The guide explains King Ludwig II’s passion for modern ideas and the chivalric life, and for opera, Richard Wagner’s especially, and how he tried to embody all that in the… well, _gingerbread_ they’re seeing right now. Abundant with allusions and symbols and mysticism, this is nothing like what Kathryn remembers from Cologne Cathedral, even if, in its own way, this monument is as impressive as that one was, especially considering that this one stems from one man’s fantasies. 

The castle’s architecture, as eclectic as it is with details ranging from the Romanesque style to examples of Art Déco and local fresco art, still pales beside the interior decorations, though. There’s a Singers’ Hall, complete with stage and tribune; a bedroom with a private, flushing toilet and an insane amount of darkened, intricate fretwork that would give Kathryn nightmares if she had to sleep there, an artificial grotto leading from the Drawing Room to the Study – a _grotto_ , for heaven’s sake! – and a Throne Hall spanning two stories with remarkably intricate decorations, paintings and mosaic displays but without a throne. Apparently, the throne never was finished, much as the rest of the rooms. Lack of funding, the guide explains, to a titter of laughter. 

Yet the palace is surprisingly modern, with that toilet and running warm water, an early telephone system, ‘modern’ ovens in the kitchen and even rudimentary central heating. And from what Kathryn gathers from the guide’s explanations, the King himself is somewhat of a tragic figure, a king in name only as head of a constitutional monarchy, a king who’s never had Richard Wagner, though his contemporary, visit the place built to honor him, a king who, despite emptying his private coffers, has lived barely half a year in the place he designed essentially by himself, a king who, one day, upped and went to drown himself in one of the lakes they can see from the turrets.

“A sad fairytale in its own right”, Kathryn sighs after the guide’s brought them back outside, turning from the view and leaning back against the white stone. 

Marie straddles her legs and sneaks her arms around Kathryn’s waist. Her bulk, such as it is, keeps Kathryn from seeing how the other tourists react, and it makes her a little uneasy not to know how this embrace is received. Well. Embracing in public makes her uneasy, period.

“Afraid they’re going to push us over?” Marie says with an amused quirk to her lips.

“Are you secretly telepathic or am I that transparent?”

To this, the younger woman sighs, suddenly serious. “No – it’s just… You’re not the first to feel this way. I mean, I know _straight_ couples who don’t go for public displays of affection, and we’re not. Straight, I mean.”

“We aren’t?” Kathryn can’t help but tease, even though the clarification, and what Marie _hasn’t_ said, tugs at her heart a little. Are they a couple?

Her quip gains her a snort of laughter, anyway. “Does it matter?”

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s not done to answer a question with another question?”

“How does it make you feel that I do?”

With a mock-serious groan, Kathryn swats Marie’s arm. “You’re-”

“-impossible, I know”, Marie laughs. “And you did it first, by the way.”

“I did what first?”

“Answer my question with one of your own.”

“I did?”

“Uh-huh.” Marie leans in to kiss her, and cocks her head when Kathryn hesitates. Her eyes light up with comprehension instantly, and there isn’t a hint of forbearance or hurt in them, only simple acceptance. _I’m very good at understanding, you know_ , Kathryn remembers her saying, wondering for a second if it’s Marie’s training or part of her character. Then again, does it matter? Marie holds the embrace for a moment longer, then stands up straight again and smiles, even winks, at Kathryn. 

“We should be going, hm?” 

Kathryn nods wordlessly.

* * *

We’re in Austria in a blink. I greet the blue star-dotted Schengen sign with a flick of my left hand, just as I’ve greeted fellow bikers. Really, I love the freedom of living in a Schengen member state. Kathryn asks me what I’m doing, so I explain – first about greeting other bikers, then, when she cuffs me, about the Schengen Agreement for the next ten minutes or so. She seems impressed by the agreement, and I recall her question about the number of wars – once again, her surprise drives home that her past isn’t mine.

The road, wide as it is, is blessedly free of traffic. Hell, but I hate hanging behind trucks, and with a pillion, _this_ pillion in particular, I’d hate to have to overtake on a two-lane road. The scenery is lovely, proverbially Alpine with dark firs, grey boulders, brown cows grazing calmly amidst riotous dandelions, buttercups and, yes, cowslips, and time-blackened timber frame houses with rocks on their roofs. Snow still clings to the highest peaks, and temperatures are lower than before, but not severely so; I’m alright with what I’m wearing and Kathryn tells me she is, too. At the last stop before the road starts to climb the pass in earnest, I switch to the properly majestic Planets suite by Holst (oh yes, I planned for this, very much so), and get out the chewing gum to help with the pressure popping in our ears – Kathryn’s quick to accept the offered one, as well, even though she smiles at my choice of music. Oh, but you’ll see, Kathryn.

Her hesitance from earlier was unexpected, somehow, but then again, we’ve never been in a situation quite like that, have we? Our closeness has either been completely private or, at most, witnessed by my closest friends. Alright, there had been kisses in the Carnival crowd, but everyone does that. And there had been our, well, dance through the underground station, which still feels like a gift to me. Judging by today, it probably was, much more so than I realized back then. And yet, here on the bike, she’s a solid warmth at my back, her hold on my waist a closeness of its own, and so very, very cherished.

The unrelenting five-four war drums and horns of Mars push us up the road, spectacular as it is, narrow and winding and with stunning views up peaks and down gorges. It’s quite something to pass treetops by at eyelevel, isn’t it? We stop for another breather at a lookout point I’ve been to before, an impossibly blue-green mountain lake at our feet and Zugspitze, highest German peak and crowned in snow and wisps of cloud, in front of our eyes; the grand, jubilant second main theme of Jupiter rings out right on cue. No coffee, though, and after five minutes we’re off again, stopping only to refuel again at the pass’s saddle point. Then, with blustering Uranus and mysterious Neptune pointing the way, we cruise lazily down into the Inn valley where we find ourselves, at long last, a nice and quintessentially Austrian café. 

After a long list of bad coffee stops, it seems this is one that finally passes muster; Kathryn raises her eyebrows appreciatively after the first sip, and I find myself relaxing while she finishes this cup and a second one, with every sign of enjoyment. After polishing off a plate of fantastically fluffy Nockerln together, we start the last leg of our journey. The road is still quite clear, and I love the carefreeness of the satnav, the warmth of both the setting sun and Kathryn at my back, our long shadow in front of us; and I sing along to Fifties standards as we make our way past Innsbruck, over the imposing Europabrücke and into the valley where the girls wait.

On that last stretch, though, I can’t put off my nervousness any longer, about what’s going to happen when we arrive – we, not I, and unannounced, too. When Kathryn had been gone so suddenly, back in February, I’d felt gutted. I’d ached and longed and cried, and the girls had been quick in blaming Kathryn for it. I’d tried to tell them it hadn’t been Kathryn’s decision to go – but uncertain as I’d been of that, myself, I’d apparently lacked in persuasiveness, or maybe I’ve simply underestimated how protective my friends are of me. And now I’ll be arriving there with her in tow – not that we don’t have the space, in that cabin we rented, but still. As if on cue, my playlist coughs up Doris Day’s Que Sera, Sera, and I have to fight to keep from laughing. True. Whatever will be, will be.

When the distance on the satnav is down to single-digit figures, I start looking for sign posts for the cabin, finding one that indicates a road winding away from the village. Drawing up in front of it with a toot of the bike’s horn, though, I have to laugh again. Cabin, indeed. It’s a full-blown cottage, whitewashed stone and dark timbers and a low roof, and firewood stacked high and lattice windows throwing golden light on snow that’s turned dusky blue by now. 

“Pretty, eh?” I grin at Anna, who was the first to answer the door at my tooting, the other girls hot on her heals. 

“Marie!” She runs out to hug me. “Warum bist Du so-” her eyes turn wide as saucers when she sees who’s taking off her helmet behind me. 

“I guess because of me.” Kathryn’s voice, at her most gravelly, sounds as apprehensive as I feel.

* * *

Dinner in the large eat-in-kitchen is an uncomfortable affair, too, after that bumpy welcome, so much so that Marie feels called upon for a grand statement, explaining in careful words that it hadn’t been Kathryn decision, much less her fault, to disappear like she had. Kathryn can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t the first time Marie’s given that speech, either. When table talk turns, though, to the reasons why it’s taken them so much longer than expected to arrive, and the girls tease and laugh about the touristy program Marie has subjected Kathryn to, Kathryn allows herself to relax a little – they both do. 

Afterwards, the six of them gather around the massive fireplace in the sitting room that takes up the rest of the ground floor, and Kathryn slowly relaxes into the softness of the sofa, the crackle of fire, and the lateness of the hour. She’d had no idea how exhausting simply traveling could be. In the end, she winds up on her side and with her head in Marie’s lap, the younger woman’s arm doodling feathery, idle designs on Kathryn’s back, subdued conversation a comfortable and ever-receding murmur in her ears.

When she jolts awake again, the fire has burned down to coals, and the room is dark and empty except for a small spot of light and the sound of turning pages, somewhere behind her back. It’s not Marie who’s sitting there reading, though, but Ellen, and instantly, the apprehension Kathryn has felt when they arrived is back.

“I didn’t mean to wake you”, Ellen says quietly, marking the page with a finger. “I volunteered to watch the fire burn down, and got caught up in my book. Marie’s already asleep upstairs; she didn’t want to wake you, either.”

Kathryn makes a non-committal noise; truth to tell, she has no idea how to reply to these unreadable eyes, and the thought that she’d been under deeply enough to sleep through everyone getting up, through Marie getting out from under her head, is quite disconcerting, too.

“I remember that day at the spa so clearly, you know”, Ellen goes on. “When I told you not to go away.”

“Ellen, I-”, but Ellen holds up a hand that stops Kathryn short.

“I saw the pain in your eyes that day, you know. It helped me believe Marie when she explained that it hadn’t been your decision to leave. And still”, she exhales heavily, and the tone of her voice is much harder than anything Kathryn has ever heard from her, “still I can’t help feeling angry about how much it hurt her, you know.”

“I… Ellen, if-” Kathryn’s voice is shaky, and she takes a breath to steady it. “If it helps at all, I… I never wanted to hurt her that way. And leaving… leaving Marie behind…” another breath. _Composure, Janeway, or at least some semblance thereof._ “I missed her.”

“She loves you, do you realize that?”

“I do. You told me”, a small smile flashing across Ellen’s face emboldens Kathryn’s next words, “and… I guess I realized it myself, even if she never said anything.” Then she realizes something else, and a laugh bubbles up, incredulous, startled. Ellen tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “She- oh, the nerve of her! She actually _teased_ me this morning, about how I never told her, and completely failed to mention even once that she hadn’t, either.” 

Ellen rolls her eyes. “That’s our Smarty, alright.” Then her voice grows serious again. “Did she… did you…”

“Finally tell each other?” Kathryn completes the question, eyebrow raised. At Ellen’s nod, she turns to stare at the smoldering coals, before going on, very, very softly, “we did.”

“And…?”

“Hmmm…?” Still lost in contemplation of that particular memory, Kathryn has no idea what Ellen might be asking.

“Well, are you staying this time?”

The question hangs there, icy in the fire’s warm glow, and in Kathryn’s insides, as well. She’s been trying all day not to think of that. “I’ve been trying all day not to think of that, you know”, she whispers, eyes still riveted to the hearth.

“So you aren’t.”

“I can’t!” Only after the words are out Kathryn notices how forceful they’ve been. “I’m sorry”, she adds more softly

Ellen sighs. “So am I.” Then she puts the book aside and stretches expansively. “Well, I guess we can’t change all of that anyway, can we?” 

A truce, Kathryn realizes. “I guess we… just have to make the best of what we’re given.” 

Their eyes meet for a long moment, then Ellen nods. “Come on”, she says, rising, “I’ll show you to your bedroom.”

~~~

Dressed in a nightshirt she found in the bathroom, Kathryn slips in next to Marie, denying how this feels like coming home until a sleep-heavy arm draws her close and a drowsy voice mumbles something unintelligible in welcome. Irrefutably tired herself, Kathryn settles into the hollow of the body next to her. The foreign scent of the sheets and the achingly familiar one of Marie fill her nose, and dreamy, warm lips on her temple kiss her goodnight, and for the first time in weeks, she’s asleep within seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs mentioned here are, of course, _Killer/Papa was a Rolling Stone_ and _Freedom_ by George Michael, the Loreley song ( _Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten_ , with lyrics by Heinrich Heine) and lastly (a little more obscurely mentioned) _The River_ by The Beautiful South. The others are identified plainly enough, I guess.
> 
> Visiting the Rhine Gorge is highly recommended, as is Schloss Neuschwanstein (there's a reason why it's crawling with tourists day-in, day-out, after all).


	3. April 24th

There’s a familiar warmth, a familiar weight against my body, bidding me snuggle closer, with which I joyfully comply until my slowly waking mind starts whispering a name, over and over.

Kathryn.

Her temple rests against my nose. Her hair softly tickles the skin on my forehead and beneath my cheek. She’s on her back, stretched out alongside me, her leg ensnared by one of mine. My left arm is stuck beneath my body, but the free one rests on her chest, slowly rising and falling with her deep breaths. 

Kathryn. 

I’m fully awake in a happy heartbeat. Carefully, slowly as a glacier, I pull away a little and open my eyes, trying not to wake her. 

Kathryn, asleep next to me, wearing the nightshirt I’d left in the bathroom for her (and I’ve never been gladder about packing something on a whim, oh, and we’ll find other things to wear for her, too, I’ve no doubt), one wrist up across the pillow, her face relaxed and with the hint of a smile around her lips-

“And just exactly how long were you going to ogle me, Marie Vey?” And very much awake despite my attempts to the contrary. Her eyes laugh, though, and my heart sings at the sight.

“Kathryn.” Her name is reassurance and thanksgiving and exultation, and I don’t mind one bit that I can’t think of anything else to say, and yes, Goddamnit, there are tears in my eyes, and lots of other emotions, too, I shouldn’t wonder. With one of her small sounds, she turns towards me and we – well, we don’t embrace, do we; we _tangle_. I wrap as much of me around her as I can, and she certainly reciprocates, and never mind my greater leverage; oh, but she crushes me to her madly, wildly, clutching at my shoulders, clenching her fists around my shirt and into my hair. I guess we’re both unable to let go; I know I am, aching with fulfilled yearning and remembered hurt, laughing with release and happiness and wonder, and I keep whispering her name as if I were a record with a scratch until it finally dissolves into hiccups and she laughs and offers to kiss them away. 

~~~

Breakfast is much more relaxed than dinner was, and Ellie wordlessly holds out a toothbrush to Kathryn, brand new and apparently bought down in the village, long before either of us got up. I can’t suppress a sigh when they smile at each other over the silly thing, peace offering that it is. When I put my jar of chocolate spread on the table with a flourish, the girls squeal with laughter, and Kathryn smirks, either at their teasing or maybe at my obsession with the stuff, and I’m slowly beginning to feel that this vacation might turn out to be as wonderful as I’d hoped it would be, wildest dreams and everything.

The girls are already kitted out, so, after breakfast, Kathryn and I head to the gear rental on our own, with an agreement to regroup at the glacier’s top station at noon. It’s been a long time since I’ve last stood on skis – apparently for Kathryn, too; but the rental clerk is professional and nice about it, and agrees with Kathryn’s hopeful assumption that her biking gear and Ellie’s surplus thermals are quite enough for skiing in April sunshine. 

“It’s almost above freezing, see. You’ll be sweating in no time, ladies”, he asserts, his English colored by the soft local dialect, while I pay the fee for two sets of skis, boots, helmets and goggles, and one set of poles. 

“Oh, I only trip over them”, I explain when she asks me why I didn’t rent poles of my own.

“But what if you’re stuck and want to push yourself out?”

“Well, in that case I guess I’ll just cry for help in the most pathetical manner, and count on you to rush to my side.”

“Indeed.” Oh, I purr at the way her eyebrow rises, just to make her laugh. 

Her eyes narrow when I bring out my purse again, this time to pay for our ski passes – I got away with paying for the fuel yesterday, by explaining how I would’ve had to anyway, but here I go, spending money on her again, and again, it sits ill with her. But really, what else can I do, now we’re here? It’s not as if it would bankrupt me, anyway. So maybe next month will be a little tight, but then, when isn’t it ever? I’ll get by. My shrug seems to paraphrase all of that well enough; she grits her teeth and sighs, and minutes later we’re in the queue for the gondola. 

The glacier above the valley beckons with brilliant whiteness – when we arrive, a little clumsily in our skiing boots, at the gondola’s mountain station, the employee who helps us get off tells us they had a meter of new snow over the last three days. Today though, the weather couldn’t be more perfect, and I for my part am drenched in no time at all, aching in strange places and bubbling with pride at finding my skiing legs again. 

Kathryn’s quicker to find them than I, and fitter, too, in the bargain, but I make up for that with recklessness, crowing with joy while I tear down the slopes as if there was no tomorrow – they’re empty enough of other skiers, snowboarders or what-have-you, late in the season as it is. Still, she beats me to the lifts more often than I her, and I try to bear that with good humor. Rejoining the girls at noon opens even more possibilities for competition, and we dare Julia to match our speed with her snowboard as we zip down the easier slopes, and find out she’s almost as reckless as I am. 

Ellie and Anna usually take a more sedate pace, and after an ample lunch of classical Alpine ski-resort specialties, we all dawdle along, Kathryn’s poles trailing lazy trajectories behind her, her skies classily close; oh, but I could spend hours watching her, the elegance, the poise, the ease with which she moves; graces I could never ever aspire to. When the slope peters out in front of the gondola station, I sneak up on her from behind, surreptitiously matching my speed to hers. Closing in, I take her skies between mine and end up embracing her, pleased with how my plan has come together. She whoops, laughs, swats my arm.

“Whoa – watch out with those poles”, I tease her, and go on, “I bet you’re glad, now, that I haven’t brought any.”

“But now we’re slowing down, and the station’s over _there_ , and… Marie, you are _not_ helping!” She laughs again when I plonk my helmet against hers and kiss her jaw, the only thing I can easily reach, salty with perspiration from the warm afternoon sun. She tries to bend away, but I’m not deterred; she likes this, I know she does. It tickles her sense of silly fun, which I _know_ is there. Before our momentum dwindles too much to move us forwards, I stem my skis’ edges into the snow and push, grabbing her waist tightly for balance, propelling the two of us with small skating motions.

“Better?” 

“Much.”

We skate in unison now, slowly closing in on the station and oblivious to how we must look until whooping and clapping alerts us to the fact that that Sarah has her camera up. I chuckle, Kathryn groans, and then more pictures demand to be taken when we join the rest of the girls, including one taken in front of the station by another employee, with all six of us beaming into the bright April sunshine, skis in one hand, helmet and goggles in the other – and don’t ask how long it takes six women to be convinced that what’s on their heads isn’t helmet hair. Yes, six – I am vain about my hair, and I do care about how I look in pictures, and Kathryn – Kathryn is impossible to conciliate with the thought of even appearing in one, let alone on purpose. The employee, bless her, takes at least half a dozen shots from what I can see, and I send a silent prayer heavenwards that at least one of them will show us all with eyes open and acceptable hair.

* * *

“You girls take the sauna – I take the hot tub”, Kathryn decrees when they arrive back at the cabin. Her command elicits laughter, but the girls like the idea of using the sauna to ease their soreness, and that huge tub has been calling out to Kathryn ever more loudly as the afternoon had progressed. She’d discovered it in the bathroom yesterday night, far, far too tired to give it a try, but nothing’s going to stop her from using it today. Never mind how fast her body had remembered and adapted, it _has_ been a long, long while since she’s last stood on skies.

“Mh-hmmmh… Mind if I join you?” Marie’s question and her mugging wakes more laughter, and much rolling of eyes, and catcalls and admonishments along the lines of ‘no sloshing’ and ‘as long as you clean up afterwards’, but Kathryn can take everything if a hot bath beckons at the end of it, so after a very short while, the bathroom door closes behind them.

“You’re nothing if not… persistent, once you’ve got your mind set on something”, Marie offers with a grin.

“‘Bull-headed’ is much closer to the mark, I think”, Kathryn snorts. “Just never get between me and a tub.”

“Or a cup of coffee; I’ll remember that.” Marie’s reply is delivered so very solemnly, yet she… good grief, but that’s very close to a once-over, the way she watches Kathryn strip. An appreciative audience, at any rate.

“I hope you’re not hoping for…” Kathryn ostentatiously concentrates on how to operate the tub’s controls, then looks back over her shoulder, wriggling her eyebrows in much the same way Marie’s done a few minutes ago.

“…action?” Marie chortles. “God, Kathryn, I’m aching as much as you are.” 

“Thank heaven for small mercies”, Kathryn replies dryly. “I’m not quite certain whether I buy that, though.” True, the younger woman’s movements as she undresses are a bit stiff indeed, Kathryn notices, but well, so are her own. 

“Have you lost weight, Kathryn?” the younger woman asks innocently, ogling Kathryn again under the flimsy pretense of helping her into the tub.

Too good to pass up, that one. “Why yes, as a matter of fact – the weight I put on because of your cooking, you see. I nearly didn’t fit my uniform anymore.” True, too.

“Go right ahead and make me feel guilty, why don’t you”, Marie replies with another chortle, not sounding dismayed at all, climbing in quite unconcernedly and arranging herself opposite Kathryn. That thing would easily accommodate all six of them, but… well, no. 

“No, really, that goddamn zip…” Kathryn reaffirms, then takes a closer look. “But so did you, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Well-”, Marie looks down, suddenly. “I… ah… well, dinner wasn’t the same without you, right?” 

“Don’t tell me you skipped dinner since I left.”

The younger woman shrugs. “I won’t, then.”

“You didn’t.” Kathryn stares at her in disbelief. “You? Who loves cooking so much?” And eating, too, but that wouldn’t be a proper thing to say, in context, now would it.

“I guess I love you more, then, don’t I?” And that quick, the smile is back on Marie’s face. She beckons and Kathryn raises both eyebrows at her.

“I am not coming over there. No action, remember?”

“I’m asking for your _foot_.” The tone of Marie’s voice conveys volumes of pained patience. “I can manage a rub.”

Agreeing to the offer is a quick, mindless decision, but lifting a leg is quite the task. When Marie’s fingers start to press and flex and knead, though, Kathryn decides it’s been well worth it. “You’re good at this.”

“You sound surprised.” 

“Learned this, did you?”

The younger woman’s hands freeze, and her face darkens at whatever memory Kathryn’s question provokes. Then she sighs and meets Kathryn’s eyes squarely. “At work, yes. In a way.”

“Social workers learn how to give foot rubs?”

Marie is silent for a while, then grimaces. “When you spend night after night sitting up with frightened muslimas, there’s nothing much that you don’t learn about getting a body comfortable.” Her face closes after this, and even though Kathryn burns with curiosity, she won’t ask. After another second of brooding, Marie exhales suddenly and resumes kneading Kathryn’s foot. When her eyes come up again, they’re afire with curiosity of her own.

“Tell me what happened when you got back to _Voyager_ ”, she asks, and now it’s Kathryn’s turn to scowl. “Oh dear”, the younger woman adds, not quite under her breath.

“You remember me telling you that Q had told me time had stopped for my crew? Well, it hadn’t.” Marie’s eyes widen and Kathryn heads her reply off with a raised hand. “Not quite- I don’t know what he did or how he did it, but I wasn’t gone for as long as I was here.” Seeing Marie’s confusion, she elaborates, “nine days. I was gone for nine days, and they simply stayed put and did nothing.”

“They weren’t worried?” Marie frowns, hands pausing. 

“Q _told_ them!” Kathryn is too amazed at how angry she sounds, how angry she still is about that, to notice how Marie’s eyes narrow.

“Told them what, exactly?” Marie asks, each word carefully enunciated, carefully neutral.

“He told them that he’d sent me on a mission to find someone”, now angry turns into offended, “and apparently he then took to appearing on the bridge every now and then, to ‘check in on them’ and lounge in my chair in the process, getting on everybody’s nerves until he decided-” she breaks off, none too certain about how she feels about what came next.

“Decided what? And how did they take it? Your mission, I mean; not the lounging.” Marie lets go of Kathryn’s foot and holds out a hand, and quite without thinking, Kathryn puts her other foot in it.

“Opened a betting pool, I shouldn’t wonder. Chakotay hinted at something along those lines.” The look in his eyes when he had is something Kathryn still hasn’t been able to decipher, yet. There had been pain in there, and a question, and a smidgeon of protectiveness, too, probably because of the way she’d reacted after breaking off with Jaffen… Realizing she’s getting sidetracked, Kathryn answers the first question Marie’s asked. “As to Q… well, apparently he decided I was, in his own words, too stubborn for my own good. Oh, go ahead and smirk all you like, but…” she breaks off, and apparently the look on her face is enough to make the grin slide off Marie’s face very quickly. 

“But what?” Marie’s voice is as gentle as her hands on Kathryn’s ankle.

“I…” Kathryn sinks lower into the water, out of sheer uneasiness with what she’s trying to express. “Marie, I hated that he’d pulled me out like he did, with not so much as a by-your-leave, and without even the chance to say goodbye.”

Marie’s eyes close as if in pain, her fingers halting their kneading. “I hated that he pulled you out at all.”

Kathryn feels pole-axed by her words. She hadn’t meant- “Marie, I…”

Slowly, the younger woman starts her ministrations to Kathryn’s foot again, breaths too measured, eyes still shut. When they open again, they’re full of understanding, almost too much so. “I’m sorry.”

“ _You’re_ sorry? Marie, _I’m_ sorry, for… there’s nothing you have to be-“

“I misunderstood, and I am sorry about that.”

“Will you _stop_ that!” Kathryn pulls her foot out of Marie’s hands to lean forward.

“Stop what?” Marie’s frown is infuriating, somehow.

“Stop being so… understanding! I hurt you, and I want to apologize for that. I should have said… what I said, in a different way. I… I missed you, and I didn’t want to leave, well, part of me-”, she breaks off again, apprehensive. “I’m saying this all wrong. Marie, please, I…” the younger woman makes as if to say something, and Kathryn’s hand stops her again, its gesture so familiar that it wakes a faint smile on Marie’s face. “Please let me… find my own way through this, yes?” 

Marie nods, and Kathryn lets out a slow breath. 

“Those four weeks with you were… well, exhausting, in a way. Heady, exasperating, delightful; a goddamn rollercoaster of a month. I was… I had nothing to captain anymore, you were right about that. And while it frightened me, it… in a way it freed me, too, I guess. Allowed me to re-examine being captain from the outside, as it were.” Kathryn can’t suppress a sigh. “I missed being on _Voyager_ , and at the same time I was glad to be… glad not to be the captain for a while. I know I’m going to be captain for a good while yet, and I’ve been… I guess part of me has been trying to define how I want to deal with that, for months now, if not longer. 

“At the beginning of our journey, it was easy. We’d figured it would take seventy years to get back, and I had to integrate two crews, one of which considered the other to be criminals, no less. So I couldn’t allow even a hint of doubt about my authority, you see?” Marie nods, silently, her face still. “I had to be aloof, as you’ve put it, stern and detached, impartial… a figurehead. Someone up there to look up to. And the further we traveled… the things that the Delta Quadrant threw at me…” She sighs again. “I had no manual for them, nor for my role. I flew, as Tom would put it, by the seat of my pants so often, and I couldn’t let anyone see that, could I. They’d come to rely on that figure somewhere up there, larger than life, _tougher_ than life.” And she’d felt stuck, somewhere up there, too. Kathryn takes a deep breath. The more she talks, the easier it gets, somehow. 

“That… burden grew heavier every day, and even if I socialized with my crew or found other ways to relax, even if I had, _have_ , people around me to share part of the load, the burden itself is mine, and will be for however long it takes to get us home.” She delivers the words flatly. She’s not whining, nor accusing, just stating a fact, after all. “I’d thought that it would help”, she goes on in a lighter tone, “when we found a way to communicate with Starfleet, and it did, in a way, but nowhere near as much as I’d hoped. I’m still, in so many ways, very much on my own out there.” Again, Marie nods, her face holding its calmness. Kathryn has no idea what is going on behind those chocolate-colored eyes. 

“And then I found myself jerked out of that carousel”, and that, at least, wins a tiny smile from Marie, “found myself in a place where I was… able to put that burden down for a while.” She realizes something, putting it like this. “Maybe that’s why Q lied to me about time having stopped. To encourage me to… give myself license to do that. You did, too; encourage me, I mean.” Another small smile, with more of a sparkle this time. “And I… well, I did, and I did like it. I liked the way we talked. Liked being with the girls, and with you. Liked the way I was, with you.” Kathryn sighs, with a smile of herself at the memories, a smile she loses with her next thought. “And then Q became impatient and dragged me back again.”

“Back to your crew who managed without you, who knew where you’d been and why, who were okay with all that and content with waiting for you for as long as you were gone.” Calm, patient, inscrutable. Still, it helps.

“I thought about that, too. That he did that deliberately. To show me they… are able to manage without me? But I _know_ that they are.” Well. Once in a while. If-

“Maybe your being here again right now is on purpose, too.” Marie’s tone is light, but her eyes are serious.

“But he… Chakotay practically ordered me to take three days of leave, with the Doctor at his elbow. They wouldn’t take no for an answer, nor listen when I said that I _had_ been on leave, as it were, when I’d been with you. But it was _their_ idea, their conclusion, not Q’s, wasn’t it? And then when I decided to go to the holodeck, Q… sidetracked me, waylaid me, or something, and I landed… well, here. But I don’t understand, you see? If Q sent me here as a… on a vacation, to go and leave as if it were a trip to Paxau, I… I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Too close to that… uh, bartender, wasn’t he?” 

“Michael”, Kathryn fills in, “yes, in a way; but I… it’s more than that.”

Marie nods. “Good.”

“Good?” 

“Well, if you can’t think of me as something to switch on and off for recreation, I guess you want to see spending time with me as something more … everyday. That’s encouraging, you see.” There’s even a shrug implied in the look in Marie’s eyes, and part of Kathryn wants to scoff and dismiss Marie’s words as her usual cockiness, but another part whispers that no, she doesn’t want this to be casual recreation; she does want this to be mundane, a regular feature of her life, and somehow that whisper manages to be louder than every other impulse. 

Abruptly, Marie detaches herself from the opposite bench of the hot tub and moves to Kathryn’s side, half an arm’s length away, and rests her head on the tub’s rim. Her body slowly rises to the surface, stretched out and relaxed as Kathryn can only wish hers were, too. Her sudden proximity and ease serve only to heighten Kathryn’s apprehension, in fact. Marie rests like that for several long seconds, her arms waving in small balancing motions; then she turns her head to look at Kathryn. Kathryn has no idea what the younger woman is seeing in her face, but she sighs, and slides off the rim and down, pausing when the water reaches her eyes. Then they, too, close and submerge. Her body, perfectly still, continues to drift down and away, away from the rim, away from Kathryn. _Well of course it does; Newton’s first law_ , a disconnected thought appears, and is crowded out by concern when Marie sinks deeper, floating a full hand’s span, then two, below the surface. _Just how long can she hold her breath?_ Kathryn wonders when a string of bubbles breaks the water’s face.

When nothing else happens for another long moment, concern turns to worry. Kathryn slips forward, her knee touching Marie’s side. Marie’s eyes open at the contact, and a smile, calm as you please, appears on her face. Then she stretches out her hand to touch Kathryn’s, takes it, pulls it down towards her head. Kathryn’s fingers cradle her neck reflexively, Marie’s eyes close again, and Kathryn can feel the muscles underneath her fingers relaxing. A tiny, silvery pearl hangs to Marie’s lips, but other than that, there is no sign of air, air Kathryn _knows_ Marie must need by now. 

Her arm bends without waiting for conscious thought or even decision, brings Marie’s head up quickly, and still, when it breaks the surface, it’s Marie’s eyes that open first, almost fully black, locking onto Kathryn’s for a heartbeat before she draws a breath, still far too calm for Kathryn’s peace of mind. Kathryn can’t stop her arm’s motion any more than she could stop her heartbeat, until Marie’s head rests in the crook of Kathryn’s neck, still cradled in Kathryn’s fingers. 

Marie’s arms continue to float for a moment longer, then close around Kathryn’s waist almost tentatively. They barely touch, yet every bit of Kathryn’s skin that does tingles with electric charges, anticipation and the anxiety that still hasn’t let go of her. She has no idea what to do with her free hand, the one that isn’t still holding, very gently, Marie’s head in its cusp and can’t let go, no idea at all.

* * *

Kathryn’s skin on her neck is a little salty still. Her hair smells different from what I remember, but that’s to be expected, isn’t it; after all, she’s just spent weeks using another, her own, shampoo, her own scent, or body lotion, or whatever. I find a familiar freckle on her shoulder and greet it joyfully, like an old friend, and she – is that a giggle? Nervous, in any case; oh, but she’s tense, Kathryn is, almost rigid, as if poised for flight. She might be. Same as yesterday: when she thinks of where she is, who she is with, and that this is, again, a pre-defined visit, the number of its days already counted, the thought occupies her mind to the exclusion of everything else. 

So I keep my touches feathery, none too sensual. Kathryn’s left hand seems glued to my neck, if lightly so, and her right paints vague patterns into the water, coming in as if to touch me at times, waving outwards at others. A dance, again. The look in her eyes when she pulled me up was dark, almost fearful, but I doubt she realized that, even when I’m certain that the same feeling is behind her inability to withdraw her hand, or her body from our – well, not embrace, it’s far too loose to call it that. Dance, yes, even though we’re barely moving. There’s even music, actually; snatches of yesterday’s songs trail through my thoughts, escape from my mouth in disconnected bits of humming.

My fingertips wander up her back, lightweight as only underwater touch can be; a shiver runs through her as her muscles contract and relax. Between the hot water and my patient fingers, they soften after a while, and it’s my turn to cup her head in my hand when they do. Her hand drops away from my neck at last, and in her eyes I can see that my random humming has helped to distract her from her brooding, too. They’re bottomless and calm, and settle on mine without any purpose other than seeing me, apparently. My right securely behind her head, I pull my arm in a little, bid her stretch out on the water wordlessly. She complies equally silent, hair fanning out around her head, eyes never leaving mine as she lets me, without the slightest hesitation, take her weight, take her head, in a neat mirroring of what she did for me, moments ago. Ah, Kathryn. 

The fingers of my left trail her chest now, half above water, half submerged as it is, and still without any aim other than loosening her muscles here, too, even if the way the water plays around her breasts is… captivating. My eyes follow my hand, even if hers remain fixed on my face. Watch me for a while, then, Kathryn, and drink your fill of my face.

She’s talked, and thought, her way through quite a bit tonight; most of it old, I’d wager, if maybe more conscious than before. Has it changed her, being with me? Was it that she had time, or a new reason, to think about these things? Whatever the reason, she seems… thoughtful. Sad. Wistful, maybe. Willing to redefine her role, maybe? I hope she might be; the thought of twenty-odd more years of being aloof like that really doesn’t appeal, does it? I do hope ‘redefining’ means ‘thinking about allowing a relationship’, too. Alright, so a relationship isn’t necessary to feel whole, or even happy. Still, it’s fulfilling in ways being single won’t ever be, and I hope she won’t be denying herself that for… well, the better part of her adult life, really. God, how I’d love to spend the better part of her adult life with her. All her life, really. I push that thought away. It’s really not useful right now.

I know she’s brooding again when her breathing catches and shudders, for a while. When the non-rhythm of my hand and my humming doesn’t change, it calms down again; becomes softer, more deliberate. Then her head moves in my hand, turns to gaze at the ceiling or the sky beyond, and I can see her eyes close slowly, out of the corners of mine.

Ever so gently I move us, until I’m alongside her, my hand ceding the cusp of her neck to the tub’s rim and slipping down the contours of her back, touching shoulder blade with fingertips and spine with root of thumb, until it comes to rest at the small of her back, a place I like immensely. The new contact makes a corner of her mouth crinkle in a completely ravishing little smile, and the way she doesn’t open her eyes is a gift, pure and simple. I can’t help but kiss her, lightly, feathery as my touches have been, and she responds, drawing my face to hers with assertive hands.

Our kiss is as sweet as our love-making gentle, our bodies moved by and moving the water that carries us. Orgasm, when it catches up with our slow and patient motions, is a low growl from me, a quiet gasp from her, as our bodies freeze, shudder, and slowly, slowly let go. We hold each other close, afterwards, arms steady around waist and shoulder, and she still tastes salty and not from sweat, but crying’s alright when there’s far too much emotion to express it any other way.

* * *

How can letting go of thought be so easy? 

How can a heart be so full, so torn, and not break apart?

How the hell have things come to this?

Kathryn sits on the bed in a yellow puddle of lamp-light, knees up and arms around them, staring into the black-and-blue of night behind the windows. On her other side, Marie’s face, flushed and relaxed with sleep, is too painful to look at, so she doesn’t. How, _how_ could this have happened, and how is it supposed to work? If Marie were awake, Kathryn would try to keep her tears in check, but as it is, she just tries not to sob. 

“‘Have you ever been in love?’” an unwelcome voice whispers in her ear, and in an equally unwelcome flash of light, Q sits on the floor between bed and window, leaning against the bedside table, outstretched legs crossed at the ankles, a sheet of paper in his hand. “‘Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable’”, he goes on reading, lowering his volume, at least, when Kathryn glowers at him, the wetness on her cheeks all but forgotten. “‘It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life’-”

“Stop”, Kathryn whispers, but he goes on, unperturbed.

“‘You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ or ‘how very perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt’-“

“Stop it, Q, damn you!”

“-‘a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.’” And with that final statement, he has the decency to look up at Kathryn at last. “Charming, isn’t it?”

“What _is_ that, Q?”

“Oh”, he shrugs, waving it about, “just something one of them wrote. Tell me – is this really how humans feel when they love? It sound terribly annoying, to tell you the truth.”

“Get out!” Her whisper is laden with venom. How _dare_ he?

“I realized, of course, its immanent potential – I’ve even allowed myself to fall in love every once in a while, in fact”, and Kathryn has no idea why he winces at the though, but something inside her, her inner Klingon maybe, snarls with satisfaction, imagining him as spurned, jilted, hurting. “But the level of sheer exasperation in these words…” his eyes and hands come up imploringly. 

“Make your point, Q, or leave. If you brought me here to enjoy myself, well, you’re not helping. And if you wake her, so help me-”

“Oh, don’t worry, Kathy, dear. She wouldn’t wake up if the two of us danced on top of her.”

“And I’m supposed to take your word on that, after the way you lied to me last time?”

“Your distrust hurts me, ma Capitaine. A real gets-inside-me-and-rips-me-apart pain”, the omnipotent being clutches his heart with his free hand, or where a human heart would be – roughly.

“You only have yourself to blame for that, you realize.”

“Oh, Kathy, don’t we all? I told you back then that it would be to nothing but your advantage if you trusted me, and did you listen? Now look where it landed you that you didn’t.”

“In bed with someone I-” oh no, she won’t give him the satisfaction of saying _that_ , no matter how expectantly his eyes light up. “-can’t possibly continue seeing, you mean?”

“Ah, but are you sure of that?” he has the nerve to ask.

“Q, you know perfectly well why this won’t work!”

“Enlighten me, ma Capitaine.” He cocks a leg, knits his fingers around the knee, all intent listener. And for some reason, Kathryn can’t think of anything to say that he wouldn’t dismiss with his usual offhandedness. That they’re from different universes – what’s it to him, omnipotent as he is? That there are rules, regulations – he’s proved, often enough, that he couldn’t care less about them. That she can’t imagine just going to the holodeck to visit Marie every now and then, when she finds the time – visions of what he might feel compelled to do if she puts _that_ to him abound in Kathryn’s mind suddenly, one more dire than the other. 

“I can’t go on with it like this”, she grates out, finally.

“Well don’t, then. Call up the arch, leave and be done with it, as I said.”

“But what will happen to her if I do?”

“Ah, ah, ah, Kathy – I’m afraid that’s where you’ll have to trust me. It wouldn’t be fair if you had all the answers, now would it.”

“Goddamnit, Q, you can’t just let me grope around in the dark, without any idea of what I’m supposed to do!”

“Well in that case, Kathy”, and he bounces to his knees and leans over to her conspiratorially, until his mouth is next to her ear. Dropping his voice to a whisper, he dispenses his advice, “this is a vacation. Why don’t you have fun?” And before she can find a glare to fry him with, he’s gone.

Kathryn seethes quietly for a while, then notices the sheet of paper he left behind. There seems to be far more text on it than what he read, and she picks it up and starts reading, skipping the first, agonizing paragraphs.

‘To be given a piece of someone – to be let inside of someone – to be, quite literally, in someone’s heart: it’s the direst and sweetest responsibility of all, isn’t it. The awe-full appraisal of the consequences of even one misstep, the jaw-dropping realization that there’s someone out there whose health of heart depends on your conduct – I can see where that scares people, because this realization alone limits, in and of itself alone, your options. You can’t know this and then choose to ignore it. You can’t know it and not act on that knowledge. But fear is a potent veil across your eyes, a loud advocate for ignorance, an alluring sedative for the mind.’

The words, neatly printed out as they are, sound… tender, somehow, and that last sentence rings quite true, considering how easily she’s chosen to close her mind on all sorts of consequences tonight, and yesterday, and… Alluring, indeed. In much the same vein, she’s almost afraid to read on, but it’s exactly why she does, in the end. 

‘To realize, on the other hand, that your heart has opened up and given part of itself to someone, and for keeping, too, without much thought of whether or not that someone will keep it safe – that thought scares even me. Of course it does. As does the thought of leaving that piece behind, maybe, if need be. Art and literature and song teach us that pieces of heart litter the world, after all, and isn’t there only so much heart in a person to go around?’

Quirky, this – maybe from the same author as those books Marie had directed her to? 

‘Well, the way I see it, you need to give pieces of your heart away, if you want to live at all. And I think there are lots of things that make your heart grow again, in lots of different directions and places. And if that makes my heart grow into a funny shape, well then, so be it. In fact, I expressively expect my heart to be funny-shaped.’

Kathryn frowns at this, suspicion budding, but her eyes, nolens volens, are drawn on.

‘Battered, torn asunder by harsh deeds and re-joined by kind words (or vice versa), bruised, gambled and spent away, and grown as full as it possibly can, and thus great enough to readily give again, and again. There’s no middle way in this. You open up your heart, or you don’t. And there is no way but one, for me. Imagine a perfectly-shaped heart, a heart that’s never opened up, that has never been hurt, or haunted, or happy, because how can you be truly happy without risking being equally truly hurt? How boring such a heart must be. How slick, and polished, and echoingly empty, of any experience, any real knowledge. I know- no. Again, I expressively expect to be hurt-‘

“God, no…” It can’t be… can it?

‘-and disappointed, and trodden down, and betrayed, and taken advantage of. Which means being hurt is necessarily unavoidable, and, considering the alternative, certainly to be preferred. Which means saying ‘yes’ to pain, ‘yes’, and ‘nevertheless’, and ‘still’. And just wait, then, and see how your chin comes up, your eyes lift, your jaw sets. Find defiance, quietly dignified, or screaming with pain, or in a tearful torrent – defiance and acceptance and such, such rewards.’

A sob escapes her, and next to her, Marie stirs. 

“Wh- Kath…”, the sleepy softness of that voice tugs another sob free and Marie is awake in an instant. “Are you crying? What is that?” Her eyes, already wide with concern, grow even larger when they fly over the words, her familiarity with them more affirmation.

“Where… how-”, then, eyes narrowing, “Q?”

Kathryn nods, too uncertain of her voice to say anything. Marie’s eyes return to the piece of paper, soften with remembering.

“This is an email I wrote Ellie, a while ago”, she murmurs.

“…when?…” It’s more croak than word, and Marie’s head comes up and around sharply, eyes widening at what she sees in Kathryn’s face.

“It… Hell, Kathryn, you don’t think… no, _no_ , it… please, Kathryn, _please_ don’t cry, it wasn’t- God, it must have been months ago, Kathryn, _months_ ; this isn’t about you, or us, _please_ …” Her arms slide around Kathryn, holding her close and rocking with her sobs. 

“I wrote this…oh, I don’t know when exactly, but definitely before I even met you. And it wasn’t that I was hurting so much as that _Ellie_ was, and with good reason, too”, Marie tells Kathryn’s neck after the first wild bout has passed. “I did not write this because I… you… not because of us, Kathryn.”

“But you write about being hurt so… you must have felt like that.”

“Well, yes, but… not at that very moment, you see. I… when Ellie told me how she hurt because of Robert, I just… remember how it felt when I’d hurt like that. Years ago, Kathryn; years.” Marie heaves a big sigh. “And those realizations helped me get through it, back then, so that’s what I wrote Ellie, to… help her find courage. She was still with him at that time, and I… well, I guess I did write that in the hope that it would help her break up with him, let go of that piece of heart of hers that still was with him.” 

Her eyes scan the lines more closely, wincing at times, then look up at Kathryn once more. “God, I can’t bear to think how it must have hit you, reading that and thinking…”

“It wasn’t until I read about expecting to be hurt that I knew”, Kathryn sniffs, finding a tissue to blow her nose. “You do have a way with words.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I seem to be repeating myself”, Marie replies with a gleam in her eye that turns into a soft smile when Kathryn throws her a wobbly one. It fades, though, after a while, and Kathryn knows what’s coming when the younger woman narrows her eyes again.

“What did he want?”

“Oh, he… well, he read this to me, the first paragraphs at least, and then he…” oh, but the memory is too raw, still, especially thinking of the rest she’s read.

“You know, happy as I am that he’s brought you here, I’m getting ready to kill him as soon as I get my fingers on him.” Marie’s tone is quite light, but her eyes are dangerous.

“He _is_ immortal, you know.”

“Good.” A growl.

“Good?” Kathryn raises her eyebrows.

“M-hm”, Marie reaffirms. “I can just kill him all over again, then. Think of how much fun I could have.”

“You sure you aren’t part Klingon?”

“How would I know? You’re the one with the tricorder.”

“Didn’t bring one.”

“Damn. That would have been interesting, now wouldn’t it. Hey Mom, hey Dad, guess what”, Marie grins even more broadly this time, and Kathryn rolls her eyes, but joins her.

“He told me it was my own fault, in so many words.” The words, a propos of nothing, surprise both of them. 

Marie recovers more quickly than Kathryn does. “Well, it always is, isn’t it?”

Kathryn’s jaw drops at the unexpected turn. “I beg your pardon?” 

“The way I see it, it all boils down to choices in the end. Mine, yours.” She shrugs, and it turns into a lazy stretch that almost distracts Kathryn from what she’s talking about. “And even if you just let things happen, well, omission is just as much action as action is itself, at least when you’re placing the blame.”

“It certainly wasn’t my choice to come here!” Kathryn defies that notion, hotly.

Marie blinks once, twice, three times, then smiles a tight little smile. “Granted”, she says, while Kathryn berates herself once more for how she puts things, “granted. But once you _were_ here, you made your choices, as I made mine. I… you know, in a very, _very_ roundabout way I’m sorry that it was my kiss that started this… complication. After all, it hurts mostly because it’s so complicated, right?” 

Kathryn nods. “If things were different…”

“Exactly. But you know, I can’t, I really _can’t_ feel sorry for having kissed you”, Marie goes on, “nor for the kiss after that, or the kiss after _that_ , you know.”

“The next one, maybe?”

“Nope. Nor this one.” 

Still, after a few more completely unlamented kisses, and spooned and wrapped in Marie’s arms, it takes a while for Kathryn to fall asleep again. Things are only impossible until they’re not – Marie had said that, last time, and now these words, and the imagined replies of an omnipotent being to a list of buts, circle endlessly in Kathryn’s thoughts, gleefully playing the what if-game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q reads an excerpt of the wonderful Neil Gayman's _Sandman_ to Kathryn. Credit where it's due. The rest, that part that Kathryn reads for herself, is mine though, or rather, Marie's.


	4. April 25th

The weather is spectacular again today, temperatures above freezing again and the sky impossibly, picture-postcard blue over the white expanse of the glacier. Kathryn attacks the slopes with a grim-faced vengeance, and ignores my frequent glances with equal determination. Seems that her rollercoaster, for whatever reason, is on a downhill slope, pardon the pun. After an hour of this, the girls decide for a less suicidal approach and head off down another slope when Kathryn hurls herself down a steep precipice, and I wonder if she knows what she’s doing at all. I’m tailing after her a lot more slowly; she’s a far better skier than I am, that at least is painfully obvious today. And I have no idea at all whether she’d wait for me.

When I round the corner at the foot of that god-forsaken bit of hill, my legs are trembling. I can’t see her anywhere, and I lost track of which set of tracks is hers, anyway, intent on getting over that last bit with my parts intact as I’ve been. My worry peaks when a medium-sized snowslab fails suddenly, obliterating all traces of skiers in a place where I’ve been only moments ago. I only release my breath when it comes to a stop well above me, then I turn around and look for Kathryn again, refraining from calling out for her, for fear of more failings.

It’s behind another corner that I finally find her. The ground here is packed ice rather than snow, and I lose my balance at the same spot that she did, I’d bet, spotting one of her poles as I fall. I’d picked up quite a bit of speed to negotiate this particular bit; it seemed to be the way to go from above, and so my impact on the unyielding ground is exquisitely painful, a fact that I adorn with several select epithets. I do manage to grab her pole, though, and when I turn my head to get my bearings, I can see her, helmetless and curled around herself in the heap of deeper snow below the icy spot. Removing my own helmet and skies, I grab them and that doggone pole in my left, and slide down to her on my stomach, head first, the epitome of graciousness, I’m sure.

“Kathryn?” I’m close enough to call her name softly, heedful of the tons of loose snow above us. She doesn’t answer, doesn’t move, and her back is to me – I can’t even see if her eyes are open. With a bit of paddling I speed up my descent to get to her more quickly, trying hard not to barrel into her when I reach her. When I try to turn her on her back, she wildly jerks her shoulder from my grasp and curls into an even tighter ball. She’s crying. Heavens help me, but she’s crying. 

“Kathryn, what’s wrong?” I don’t think she’s physically hurt; she wouldn’t have reacted like that to my attempt at helping if she were, I guess, but something _is_ wrong, and has been all morning. “You know”, I go on in a voice that’s much more light-hearted than I feel, “other couples have a song, or a catchphrase, or something. We, now – we seem to be developing quite a different tradition, aren’t we.” She’s still silent, but she does react; her breathing has changed and I know she’s aware of me, and listening. “Hurt, cold… well, at least you’re not soaked, nor lost.”

“Nor a goddamn damsel in distress, either.” So she remembers, too, and, God help me, but the line is funny. Her voice, though, tight as it is, precludes laughter. Oh, she hurts, Kathryn does, and I yearn to hold her close and tell her all’s well, but it isn’t, so I don’t.

“Oh, but you are.” I keep up the light tone. “If not a damsel, then at least distressed.”

“And you’ll insist on being the knight errant”, she growls. 

“Well, my skies _are_ white, you see.”

“I don’t need a knight.”

“I know you don’t. You don’t need anyone. Not _need_ , as such. I know you’re good on your own. But once in a while, it’s nice to have someone.”

“No it’s not.” It’s no more than a whisper, and she’s still talking to her fists, but I can’t keep up my pretense of lightness at the amount of raw emotion in her words. She doesn’t fight, though, or protest when I slip my arms around her and pull her atop my legs so that she’ll be off the snow. She sits in my lap loose as a doll and curled like a child, her arms inside my embrace. With one of my hands, I tug her gloves off; too much clammy wetness at my chin. She doesn’t look at me at any point of this, eyes riveted to those small hands of hers, tears freely falling and fingers red with cold, until I open my coat and scarf, and, with a wince, push her hands inside, next to my neck, skin to skin.

It’s then that she starts to move, with small choked gasps that tear at my heart, one hand sneaking further around my neck while the other drops and slips around my waist. Open as my coat is, she’s practically slipping into it, burrowing – I can’t call it anything else, I don’t know that there’s much conscious thought going on in her mind right now – for warmth and whatever else I can offer, and offer I do. I don’t care that my butt is cold, and starting to get wet from snow being pressed into the fabric. I don’t care that my feet are slowly dying, twisted as my ankles are in their unyielding boots. I don’t care for anything but Kathryn in my arms, shaken by a storm of sobbing. It’s slow to subside, and I keep my arms around her for a long time. When her crying stops, she stays with me, though, even after I’ve passed her a tissue, and she’s blown her nose.

“I can’t help it, Marie”, she murmurs, forehead in the crook of my neck. “I can’t stop thinking of how… how it’ll _hurt_ when I have to leave. And even though I hope that Q won’t simply magic me away again, I can’t stand the thought of…” she swallows, sounding incredibly detached for what she’s telling me. “Of saying goodbye.” Her voice trails away. She clenches her hands into fists around the fabric of my shirt, but her sobs, and her tears, have stopped completely. I’m glad that she doesn’t pull away, she’s so obviously decided she’s through with the crying.

“Well, go ahead and cry a bit more, then, if it helps.” I rest my cheek on the crown of her head. “Crying’s not that bad, you know.”

“What?” Her head comes up so abruptly that I have difficulties getting mine out of the way. Her eyes are narrow, red-rimmed and frosty as the snow we’re – well, _I’m_ sitting on.

“Kathryn, sometimes you can’t choose between pain and no pain”, but she _knows_ that, right? “Sometimes there are only two sorts of pain to choose from, and still, choose you must. The way I see it, right now, you can walk away from me and hurt straight away, or you can spend the next days with me and hurt afterwards.” I shrug, and her glare intensifies, quite a feat actually. “I know what I’d choose.”

Her eyes close, and when she opens them again, they’re distant, probably all the way to the Delta Quadrant. “This is precisely why I didn’t want to fall in love. There’s that goddamn safety catch of yours, Marie. How can I focus on all the things I have to do when I’m hurting like this? How can anyone get anything done at all when they’re hurting like this?”

“How did you do it before this?”

“Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it; I didn’t.”

“No. You did. Once.” Again, her eyes shoot daggers at me, but I remember what she’s told me, and how she told me, clearly enough. “And he died, and took so much of your heart with him that you’re afraid it’ll never be whole again.” She purses her lips at the corniness of that sentence, but nods after a second, mouth set so sharply I fear for her teeth. “You _are_ whole, Kathryn”, I go on. “That heart of yours might be a funny shape, but it’s whole. You couldn’t love me like you do if it weren’t.”

“But then why does it hurt so much?” 

She looks as surprised of her words as I feel. My own heart skips a beat when I realize she hasn’t disputed my assertion of how she loves me. Part of her knows. But knowledge isn’t acceptance, especially with her, I guess. “Because circumstances don’t allow you to have what you want, maybe?”

“‘What if’?” 

I nod. “I guess so. But let’s try another ‘what if’ – the one where you return to me, on your time off. I’d…” I swallow, but don’t hesitate. I’ve given it some thought, after she’d mentioned it. “I’d be okay with that, you know.”

“I can’t.” If it’s been daggers before, now it’s bullets, two of them, laden with quiet fury, and they, now, _they_ hit me. I stare at her, speechless. “Q said”, she goes on, “and I remember his words very well because they sounded so strange at that time: ‘just remember to call for the arch if you want to return – but when you do, you’ll have to leave for good’.”

And those two words hit me even harder, never mind that I don’t have a clue what ‘calling for the arch’ might signify. For good. So this solution, this admission I’d been fighting myself for, this ‘good enough’, second-best, ‘well, at least’ sort of compromise, is closed to her. She can’t come back. When this is over, it’ll be over. For good.

“Fuck, Kathryn”, I breathe, “that’s… ugly of him. Just what does he think-”

“I have no idea. I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

Resentment wells up in me. Anger, at this omnipotent… _bully_ who thinks he can push people around like so many gaming pieces. Something of that seems to reflect in my eyes.

“Infuriating, isn’t he.”

“Why is he doing this? I mean, if he wanted to give you a chance at finding someone to love, why doesn’t he do so in a way that allows you to… uh…”

“Keep that someone?” she offers. Seeing the amusement I can’t suppress at her choice of words, she shrugs off a half-smile. “Told you I was possessive.”

“So you did.” I sigh. “I _will_ kill him, you know.”

“I’ll hold your coat.” My smile grows stronger at her allusion to the book I’ve bid her read. “Oh, screw that. I’ll join you.”

“Part Klingon yourself, are you.” 

“Been rubbing shoulders with one for too long, I’d say.” This lightness is something we both need, I think. We always seem to vacillate between these two extremes; rollercoaster, indeed.

~~~ 

Afternoon finds us reunited with the rest of the girls, and I bless them silently for not batting an eye at the change in Kathryn. She patently is no longer trying to get herself killed, and, like yesterday, all of us proceed at a more leisurely pace, simply enjoying the physical exertion. Sarah, proud owner of twin-tip skies as of this season, practices skiing backwards, Anna decides to have a go on Julia’s snowboard, and we all generally monkey around, to much amusement and taking of embarrassing pictures. Sarah keeps her camera glued to her fingers, and even Kathryn stops protesting after a while. 

I’ve been thinking about Kathryn’s behavior after she left in February; both the behavior I’d been able to watch, and her accounts of what had happened to and on _Voyager_. I remembered her hints about losing both her father and the man she’d loved so very much, and what she’d told me had happened afterwards, and her gratings about counselors and counseling. I recognized cues, possibly symptoms, asked my gut-feeling. 

And _then_ I’d started to think about distance. I had told her, laughingly, that I wouldn’t be her counselor, and she’d laughed, too, at the time. And yet I hadn’t been joking, not much. We’ve moved far beyond the distance necessary for effective counseling, however much she might need it. But then again, social workers always walk a fine line in their relationships, don’t they. You can’t just switch off watching people, perceiving their signals, interpreting their actions. Granted, everyone does that, but psychologists, social workers, counselors – however you call them, they can’t help looking at behavior in a different way, just as an actor or film-maker doesn’t look at a movie, a composer or pianist doesn’t hear a song the same way the next man would. 

So what happens, then, when a social worker perceives behavior that worries her, in someone who’s close? I’ve walked that line with Ellie – hell, I’m walking it still, to this day, even if she’s a lot better now than three months ago. And I’m walking it with Kathryn. Her crying spells, both yesterday and this morning, have exceeded everything I’ve ever seen from her. The little she has related about how _Voyager’s_ travels have affected her is still enough to know that she’s been through a whopping, awful lot, and that it has cost her dearly. Yes, she’s been strong enough to take it, and yes, she’s developed ways of coping, but at what price, and for how much longer? She’s lost people, her trust has been betrayed, she’s had to make staggeringly wide-reaching decisions. Alone. All the time, and for all the friends around her, ultimately she does wear that burden alone. Because there are some things you can’t share, not with friends nor with a lover. She knows that. But knowing that there is a burden doesn’t mean you know how to carry it, or how to set it aside for a while when life lets you. And from what I see, that burden is slowly suffocating her.


	5. April 27th

Good God, but driving to Italy feels like traveling through time, fast forwarding to another season entirely. Granted, there’d been green meadows in Austria, too, and flowers, and warm sunshine, but they’d been cavorting in snow all day long, first skiing – and Kathryn had loved that – then sledding, excitedly barreling down slopes they’d dismissed, on skies, as boring. Yesterday evening, after the third long day of that and despite having a go in the tub _and_ the sauna, Kathryn had felt bruised and sore in entirely new places, fervently wishing for 24th century regen equipment. 

Julia is taking a turn on her own bike today, with Anna herself riding pillion in Marie’s gear (and how the girls have joked about how it hung on her, and how they’d dived into their suitcases for things for Kathryn to wear, days earlier). Marie, meanwhile, has jumped at the chance to drive the car – which she does as diligently as driving a motorbike, even though she’s a lot more vocal behind the wheel than at the handle bars. Turns out the younger woman can be quite impatient, something Kathryn hadn’t noticed until now. At any rate, Kathryn’s vocabulary of German swearwords has expanded even more during the last two hours, seated next to her as she is, Julia’s pad on her knees. 

She’d almost choked on her gas station coffee when Julia offered her to ‘browse the internet with the pad’ – good grief, the thing even _looks_ a bit like the PADDs she’s used to. Using it is quite different, though, if intuitive. At the moment, it displays information about the valley they’re in; from what it says, this way over the Alps has been a thoroughfare since the Bronze Age. The Romans have passed here. Tribes wanting to conquer Rome have passed here, coming the other way. Goethe has passed here, on his pilgrimage to the land where the lemon trees bloom; today, most of Europe’s transalpine traffic passes here, something that’s quite noticeable at the moment, in fact. 

Another annoyed comment of Marie’s, this time at another driver who crowds into the space she’s keeping for Julia and Anna on the bike in front of them, brings a lazy smirk to Kathryn’s face. She doesn’t care that Ellie and Sarah mock Marie’s impatience every time. She doesn’t care that they’re moving about as slowly as sugar-drunk Argellian Bluedragon Snails. She doesn’t even care that it’s started to rain and the wipers make a horrible noise each time they move across the windshield. 

She’s happy. She’s pushed every thought away, every worry, every painful feeling, firmly remembering Chakotay’s advice to live in the moment from time to time. Up until now, she’s only ever found this with a book in her hands, mind so absorbed it forgot everything beyond black on white. But here and now, in a car inching south towards Italy, she finds it in a hand squeezing her thigh, in a happy off-key choir of three voices singing along to every song on the playlist, and in cheered applause when the next song is an old, old standard and Kathryn joins in, just because.

* * *

Traffic is lighter when we cross into Etsch Valley, and the rain is letting up, too. There are wisps of cloud still curling on the steep hills to our left and right, but I don’t mind. It’s grand how you can cross a border, or a pass, and be in a completely different place all of a sudden. Vegetation is different. The houses are different, the road signs, too, in form and color and language, of course. Everything looks different, smells different, and I know Kathryn takes it in to the fullest. Her head is back against the headrest, her eyes alternating between Julia’s pad, and the window, and daydreaming. Daydreaming! I’d never thought I’d see a look like that on her face, but it’s there, every now and then, and I have to be very careful not to neglect my driving duties whenever it appears. 

God, but I love her. I thought I’d die on the spot when she started to _sing_. Oh, she knows how to croon, Kathryn does, and she has the perfect voice for it, if she finds the perfect song for its pitch. Fly me to the moon, indeed – oh, my starship captain, wouldn’t you though? I could spend forever just driving like this – well, without our other passengers, maybe, much as I love both of them. As if on cue, Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang offer driving while the other sleeps; Kathryn’s half-smile deepens and I know she’s listening. When her hand slips over mine on her thigh (and I’d been so nervous when I reached out, nervous as a teenager, but she didn’t so much as twitch, and I’ll never let go), I beam at her around my singing, botching the lyrics but I don’t give a hoot.

The hills are sweeter here, more lush, with orchards and lilac already blooming, and vines neatly lined up between low grey stone walls. Above them, castles great and small adorn every hilltop and rocky spire, and it’s Kathryn who’s our tour guide now, prompted by the pad in her lap, telling us how knights and lords and assorted noblemen prowled this entry lane in olden times. She’d been excited when she read that this is wine country, delighted when she found out we’d be staying smack in the middle of one of Italy’s most famous viticultural areas, thrilled when Sarah told her that Julia has organized a tasting for the day after tomorrow. I never realized she’s into wine that much, but then again, Cologne isn’t famous for wine, now is it.

Julia knows her way around here intimately; she’s lived in Verona for three years as a postgraduate, working for an international company, and came this way every other week, all nine hundred kilometers of it. The villa we’re renting belongs to acquaintances of friends of hers, and there’s a huge reunion dinner planned for tonight, at the trattoria next door. We all wonder how we’ll get along, as none of us has ever learned Italian except Julia, of course. All misgivings about that are forgotten, however, when we reach our home for the next days. It’s spectacular; a sixteenth-century villa, quintessential Italian in that it incorporates several buildings, including an impressive three-storey tower, all clustered around a courtyard facing south, with old trees and blooming bushes and white wrought-iron garden furniture. The girls go up in flames over its archetypical Italian-ness, Sarah takes dozens of pictures, and when we pick up our bags to follow our hostess to our apartment, we’re blown away at discovering that we’re actually going to spend the next four nights _in that tower_.

Kathryn, for her part, almost swallows her tongue when our hostess introduces herself under the name of Alighieri, and the two of them spend the better part of the next hour discussing the famous ancestor while I take our bags to the double bedroom one storey down instead of the double-double (king-size bed on a gallery and pull-out sofa beneath) that takes up the tower’s top. The privacy of a bedroom all to ourselves is worth bearing the girls’ teasing and several luggage trips (really, how, _how_ can my own, modest, barely-two-bags luggage have evolved into _this_ , when everything Kathryn has worn so far came out of either Julia’s or Ellie’s suitcase?) up the unbelievably narrow winding staircase, in my opinion. I can’t really ask Kathryn, because I’m through with unpacking when she finally finds her way in, her eyes fixed on two antique books in her hands. Even then, she doesn’t respond to anything I say until she’s put them, reverentially, on the table. 

“She gave them to me, just like that”, she croaks. “As a present. She said she had too many, anyway, and since I’d liked them so much…” She swallows, heavily. 

I pick up one of them. “La Divina Commedia, commentato”, I read, “printed in Florence in 1886.” I look up at her. “Now you just have to learn Italian, don’t you?”

“Eighteen eighty-six”, she breathes reverently, eyes still fixed on the one on the table. It seems she’s afraid to touch it, now that she’s put it down. “Do you have any idea how…” she breaks off, unable to finish.

“How old these are? Yes; one hundred and twenty-six years, Kathryn.” Her eyes flick up to meet mine at last, in surprise, and I suppress a laugh. Why yes, in terms of the twenty- _fourth_ century they’re ancient, of course, but they aren’t there, she’s _here_. “They don’t look too bad, either, do they? How much these are worth? No, not a clue. How much they mean to you – hell, I almost feel jealous, the way you look at them.” I pass the book back to her and she grasps it, eagerly, and hugs it to her, deepening my smile in the process. And then she smiles at me, a full-blown, delighted, _happy_ smile, still holding that book tightly, almost lovingly in her arms, and I realize she has dimples when she does, and I wish I could keep that image in my mind for the rest of my life.

~~~

Dinner is as raucous an affair as only a roomful of Italian families can make it. The trattoria is closed to everyone else tonight, and its host is bringing platter after bulging platter out of the kitchen without so much as showing a menu or asking for an order. But I won’t complain, far from it, when his kitchen magic shimmers in front of my eyes – antipasti both hot and cold, grilled vegetables, pesto in green and red and black, home-made pasta with five or six types of sauce, fish straight out of Lake Garda, meat dishes from rabbit to horse, dolci to die for, and oceans of wine. It’s nearly midnight when we leave, and I’m ready to roll home rather than walk, heavens, but I’m that stuffed. Our Italian has improved, though, at least regarding foodstuffs and associated vocabulary.

After saying goodbye to everyone Italian, which easily takes another twenty minutes, we start to walk home – slowly. That Recioto, the wine that had accompanied dessert, had packed quite a punch; sweet and full-bodied it had been, much more so than the Ripasso we’ve had with dinner, and it shows. Julia and I are easily the clearest heads in the group, for what’s it worth. Julia, as quasi-ex-pat, is used to imbibing this amount of wine, apparently, and I’ve kept to water for most of the evening after noticing how quickly even a few tasting mouthfuls had started to affect me. Kathryn’s tasted both, too, and after expressing how remarkable she found them, has followed my example. Now she falls into step with me easily, arm slipping into mine as we pass beneath a sweetly blooming lilac. But Sarah, Anna and Ellie are careening along arm in arm, not so much for steadiness than for holding one another up, and Julia practically herds them, with barely disguised amusement.

When the six of us reach a crossroad, Kathryn and I have fallen behind a little, and stumble into the girls’ bickering without much warning.

“-living here for three years, how can you not know?” Anna is asking Julia peevishly.

“Well, I can’t know every street and crossroad, can I?” Julia shoots back. 

“That one”, I indicate calmly, and they round on me, united in their disbelief. “It’s the right direction”, I reply with a shrug. 

“So you’re a satnav all of a sudden?” Sarah peers at me suspiciously.

“No, but…” I shrug again. “I looked it up on the internet.” Oh, _that_ goes down well. “I did, back home”, I protest their scoffing, “I looked up the villa in Maps, and I remember that tennis club there. We need to turn right.” They continue arguing, but they do follow me when I set my chin and set out, not that they have much choice. Kathryn chuckles. 

“What?” I ask her, amused myself.

“I couldn’t decide whether you make a better nursery teacher or commanding officer, but then I figured there’s not much difference, sometimes”, she tells me with a wicked gleam in her eye. Well, she would know, I’m sure. Then, more seriously, “you were sweet with that child.”

“Francesca? Oh, _she_ was sweet, not me.”

“The two of you understood each other well enough, didn’t you? She didn’t let go of you all evening, the little monkey.”

“She didn’t, did she? Ah well…” I smile, remembering big, bright blue eyes and sweet seriousness. That kid had been precious. Then I shrug. “I guess I’m good with kids.”

“And good with languages.”

“Lots of languages in school, and I’ve been to Italy a few times. So, I guess I can’t help it.” I shrug again. “And ‘I spy’ is easy enough, isn’t it? Easier still when you play it with colors, instead of letters.” I smirk, not quite at ease with the direction our words have taken.

At least the direction of my feet has been true – we round a last corner and find ourselves, indeed, at the gate to our villa’s estate. I endure a round of dubitable praise – ‘satnav’ the most prominent, of all things. 

“So you’re good with maps and directions too, it seems”, Kathryn smiles at me when we’re in our bedroom, getting ready for the night. 

“Oh, do stop, will you?” My turn for peevishness, now. It’s bad enough that the girls insist on putting me on a pedestal every so often, and for something as unimpressive as this, what’s more. I don’t see any reason for it, never have. So I’m good with some things. But that’s not a reason-

“Sore spot?” Kathryn’s voice cuts through my musings.

“M-hm.” I slip between the sheets but don’t lie down. I hug my knees instead, uneasiness rising. The fact that my contact lenses are out doesn’t help. She sits down at the foot of the bed, idly fingering the comforter, and her face is nothing but a blur to me; I don’t even know if her eyes are open. I’m pretty certain they aren’t on me, but that’s about all I can tell. 

“You are, aren’t you?” 

“Good with maps?”

She rolls her eyes. I think. Her voice is certainly exasperated. “Good with a lot of things.”

“I guess I’ve been lucky – favored by fortune.” I sigh again, more heavily this time. “Jack of all trades, master of none, isn’t that what they say? I dabble, Kathryn. I know a bit of this, a bit of that. Gardening. Astronomy. Cooking.” I shrug. “If I hear something that’s interesting, I remember it. I’m not very good with things that don’t interest me, though. I can’t blow a gum bubble to safe my life, you know.”

She ignores that last bit, more’s the pity. “You said that your parents wanted you to take up law, or medicine. That’s not something anyone can do. And you’re quick. If I were to guess, I’d say you scored pretty high, didn’t you?”

I scoff, mouth a-quirk. “I hate that sort of pigeonholing, Kathryn. The way I see it, your entire life’s a test. So what if someone scores above average in a bleeding high-school exam?” I raise my hand, fingertips closed then exploding, that classical Italian gesture, so expressive of my distaste. “Believe me, I’ve seen so-called geniuses act as stupid as flustered ducks, and been impressed as hell by people who everyone considered two bricks shy. So what if someone skips a grade? So what if someone has a doctorate, or an IQ of a gazillion?”

“Some people consider that important.”

Her words are carefully neutral, still I round on her. “Yes, and they can get stuffed for all I care, Kathryn. Like I said, life’s the bloody test, and your ability to cope with the things it throws at you. That’s not determined by school grades. If you can’t cope, you’ve lost, doctorate or no.”

“I’ve never seen you so passionate about anything”, she sounds a bit taken aback, and it takes the wind out of my sails.

“People put so much value on all the wrong things.” I sigh, deflating a little. “If I’ve learned anything from my work so far, it’s that a goddamn piece of paper doesn’t change who you are, and yet people act as though diplomas and certificates are holy.”

Kathryn nods pensively, eyes all the way to her starship again. “Someone’s actions are more important than a commission, I certainly agree with you on that.”

“Commission?” I know that one in a financial context, but…

“Appointment to the rank of officer”, Kathryn replies. “I found myself without a Chief Engineer at the beginning, and hesitated when the best candidate didn’t hold a commission because she’d flunked out of the Academy. But when I did choose her, she repaid that a thousandfold.”

“Uh – that was the one who’s half Klingon, right?” I frown, trying to remember. 

“Were you taking notes on me, Marie Vey?” 

I can’t resist. “Gotta make my millions somehow, Captain Kathryn.”

She snorts a laugh and finally moves closer. “You certainly go for extravagant holidays, I know that much. This place can’t be cheap.”

“Extravagant? Hardly”, I scoff again, but with a laugh of my own this time. “You should see me hob-nobbing in Dubai. No, in fact,” I lean closer to divulge this, “Julia got a bargain price. These people are cousins of a colleague, or a colleague of cousins, or whatever.”

“Indeed.”

I flop to the bed, and she snuggles into my arm, and we tell each other stories of places we’ve been; not Dubai, certainly, but I have seen a bit, and she – well, she is a starship captain, right? I love to listen to her. Her voice, surprisingly jarring as it’s been in the beginning (and still can be at times), is music to me now, warm and subtle and so expressive. And the things she notices, and the things she doesn’t, are so… telling. She can tell you the precise location of a place, its climate down to decimal point, predominant industries and indigenous ores, but ask her about what people were eating or what music they listened to, and she’s stumped. And yet her accounts vibrate with her curiosity, her fascination, and listening to her, I know why she’s out there, and why it isn’t a completely terrible thing to be out there, either, tough as it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another note about songs: First, we have Julie London's _Fly me to the Moon_ , and later, that divine duet of those two wonderful singers, _Baby you can sleep while I drive_ by Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang. 
> 
> The Italian Villa is a real place, and it is actually, truly, really owned by descendants of Dante Alighieri (although I wouldn't know if they gave books away). It's truly a beautiful place, and if you google a bit, you should be able to find it (won't post a link here, might be read as advertising).


	6. April 28th

Dawn is grey outside the windows when Kathryn slips out of the bed, careful not to wake Marie. They’ve talked quite a while yesterday, and it’s felt so… comfortable, too, but now Kathryn’s itching to see these new surroundings, not dwell on tales of old explorations. The impossibly narrow winding staircase is cold beneath her feet, and the bathroom’s not much cozier – sixteenth-century walls, Kathryn recalls, doing her ablutions as quickly as she can, and she chuckles when she remembers, Marie’s teasing in her ears, that this means an age of four hundred, rather than seven hundred years. 

The outside air is surprisingly mild, though, soft and clear after another night’s rain. Great for a run, but Kathryn hasn’t brought the right shoes, and somehow, she doesn’t want to just hold out her hand and ask for them, loath to find out if she’s really here or on a holodeck, or somewhere in between. The heels of her standard issue boots are alright for a walk, though – it’s not as if she isn’t used to them by now, seeing as she wears them day in, day out, in an attempt to gain at least a little authoritative height. 

Her feet take her to yesterday’s trattoria, and further up that tiny street, past ancient stone walls and palm trees and houses in every shade of yellow, red and beige, until she stumbles on a place that sells cheese and meats. They seem to be in the very act of opening for business, and when Kathryn stops to admire their display, the shopkeeper, a lady even smaller than Kathryn, and probably twice as – alright, maybe not quite that old, but past seventy, for sure – pulls her in, friendly and with many a smile and comment.

“Qualcosa per la nostra colazione, signora?” 

“Uh…” Wait – ‘cosa’ means ‘thing’, doesn’t is, and ‘per’ is ‘for’, certainly, so- 

“Fruhstuck”, the shopkeeper tries, undauntedly, and that, even though mangled, is close enough to Marie’s usual wake-up call for Kathryn to recognize. Breakfast – oh, ‘something for breakfast’! In reflex, Kathryn’s eyes widen appreciatively, and before Kathryn can stop her, the shopkeeper whips out waxed paper and tongs, and starts to assemble a platter of what Kathryn has learned is called salume: thinly sliced sausage, ham and prosciutto. She pauses only to ask, “quanti personi?”, well, and that’s easy enough, isn’t it, Marie and sweet little Francesca have been counting and asking the number of things all evening.

“Umm, sei. Sei personi”, and this is patently not good, but how can she stop the woman without the proper grasp of language? 

“Siete tedesca, vero?” And that, too, has come up yesterday, often enough.

“Uh, no, americana.” She’s getting along, isn’t she? Now if only…

“Kathryn!” Good God, but she’s never been so glad to hear Julia’s voice. Marathon runner, Kathryn remembers when, turning, she sees the way Julia’s kitted out, and smiles at her in relief.

“Julia – oh, it’s so good to see you, I-”

“You’re buying breakfast? Good idea.”

“Well, not so much buying, in fact, I… ah… didn’t bring any money. I didn’t mean to… it just happened, you see.” 

Julia whoops a laugh, then explains it to the shopkeeper in rapid-fire Italian, who replies just as quickly, and with much laughter. “Don’t worry”, Julia says, to Kathryn, “I explained. I’ll just run down to the house and get some money, and you hold the fort. We need bread, too, and coffee, and… oh, you’ll be right. She’ll help, she’s said.” And with a quick wave goodbye, she’s gone. Kathryn feels strangely deserted, and smiles at the shopkeeper a little helplessly.

“Si, si, aiuto, aiuto. Help”, the lady nods. “Giovanna Gioberti.” And she stretches out a hand, a smile pulling her face into a mass of amiable wrinkles.

“Kath – Caterina”, Kathryn replies, shaking.

“Caterina – bienvenuto. Allora, abbiamo prosciutto cotto e crudo, mortadella, salame, qualcosa di piu?” And she looks at Kathryn questioningly for a second, to much the same response. “Ah!” She snaps her fingers. “Formaggio, no?”

“Cheese! Yes, uh, si. Si, formaggio”, _good grief, this is a nice Italian lady, not a maj, Janeway, get a grip on yourself_.

“Vabbene, vabbene… allora, questo è Monte Veronese vecchio, molto tipico della regione. Provalo, provalo”, Signora Gioberti holds out a small piece expectantly. “Degustalo, Caterina, vai.” 

“I’m supposed to taste it? Oh, very well, then. Grazie mille.” The cheese is straw-colored, brittle and mature, almost spicy, and very, very good. What was the…? Ah. “Delizioso”, Kathryn ventures, to more cheerful smiling. 

“Si, è buonissimo, vero? Ebbene. Questo qui, c’è Ubriaco…” Tasting little bits of cheese, it does seem like no time at all until another plastic bag is full, with cheeses Kathryn has forgotten the names of immediately, each tastier than the other. Oh, Kathryn could get used to this sort of grocery shopping, indeed. 

“What else, now – oh. Of course. Coffee. Caffè. Vorrei un caffè, per favore.” It had been yesterday’s last order, and so easy to learn, too – just a matter of finding the right motivation, Marie had laughed. Signora Gioberti is delighted, and packs a black-labeled tin with a decisive nod. 

“Questo è tutto?” Another questioning look, and an encompassing gesture.

Wait a minute… ‘tutte’ meant ‘everyone’, right? “You want to know if this is all?” Kathryn draws a circle around the bulging bags with her hand, too.

“Si, alle, alle, completo, si?”

“Er, no... bread, – ah! Pane.”

“Pane! Ma vero, pane!” And just as the third bag is being filled, Julia returns, purse in hand, a savior in a sweat-soaked t-shirt.

* * *

We’re on a boat. 

After half an hour’s drive, we’d arrived at Lake Garda’s east coast, in the town of Garda, to be exact, and had taken a ferry to equally enchanting Sirmione, where I couldn’t help but, to much teasing and calls of ‘Smarty’, recite Catullus’ famous love poem. Girls, the man lived here, look, there’s his statue. Kathryn had never heard of him, yet apparently the poem impressed her enough that she’d asked me, over a cone of ice cream and lagging behind the girls on purpose, to repeat it for her once more.

“I hate and I love”, I’d declared, with feeling but softly. “Why do I do that, you might ask – I don’t know. Yet I feel it happening to me, and endure excruciating pain.”

“And all that in just fourteen words?” Kathryn had asked. 

“‘Odi et amo‘”, I’d repeated for her then, delighted about her curiosity. “‘Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio. Sed fieri sentio et excrucior.‘ Fourteen words indeed, eight of which are verbs, in an ever-descending spiral of passivity and pain. Oh, he suffered. That ‘nescio’ – you can practically hear him sighing. And ‘excrucior’ – no explanation required, right?”

“I endure excruciating pain.” Her eyes had been captivated, and I’d wondered whether it had been the poet’s obvious distress or the etymology that had caught her interest. “How did it come to that?”

“Unrequited love”, I’d shrugged and grinned, “or maybe he was spurned – I don’t remember. I started to like Latin when we read that, but I don’t remember too much of it now. It’s been a few years, after all.” Kathryn had only snorted at my obvious fishing.

The ferry ride had been exhilarating, sun and spray in our faces as the hydrofoil ran over the blue-green waves. Our next stop, Salò on the lake’s west coast, had been exceedingly pretty, too, and the girls had unanimously proclaimed it Italy’s Baden-Baden, or Karlsbad, one of those old-fashioned spas. We’d eaten a lovely lunch in a small trattoria, and then Julia had gone to see a man about a boat. 

And now we’re on the lake again. In a sailboat. Oh, Julia had the license, of course. It’s amusing, really, how people are people everywhere. Sometimes you have these… sports geniuses, who seem to be able to do anything they set their minds to. Kathryn too, I’d wager. Oh, how I’d envied them, struggling through lessons, giving up on ball games because of bad hand-eye coordination, giving up on running because of… well, laziness, frankly, and finally ending up moving on animals, or water: riding, rowing and kayaking – those, I found easy.

So, sailing, now. Not too difficult, I’m thinking. Julia having the license means that Julia is captain, though, and _that_ was… disconcerting for my starship captain; I could see it in her eyes when Julia took command as a matter of course. It was obvious within minutes that of all of us bar Julia, Kathryn is the most able hand at sailing. But then again, I guess, it’s better that Julia’s ordering us around in our mother tongue. We’re a good crew, though, I think, with Julia giving commands, me translating as best I can, and Kathryn showing us landlubbers what we need to do. Not that I need to translate much, Kathryn with her knowledge of the sport is quick to pick up the vocabulary, which is just as well since – hell, I don’t have a clue of English sailing terms, do I? So, laughing and grunting and learning, we’re making our way out of Salò bay and up into the northern parts of Lake Garda, running in front of a lovely wind.

When we pass Toscolano, I take the tiller for a change. Julia and Sarah work the main sail now instead of Kathryn, Anna and Ellen. Anna and Kathryn have taken over the smaller one from Sarah and me, and Ellen, officially ‘off duty’ for the moment, lounges about in front of me, trying to keep out of the boom’s (another word I’ve learned) reach. 

My job is to ‘keep her nice and steady’, and that means using the rudder to correct the angle in which the wind wants to take us. Easy – instinctive, really. Our boat, or sloop as Kathryn calls her, or Stella, as the harbormaster calls her, is slightly slanted ( _heeling, Vey, the word is ‘heeling’_ ) from the force of the wind, and it feels exhilarating to cut through the waves like this, even though I don’t have the slightest clue about how fast we are. 

Then a gust hits us sideways. 

It knocks the main sail free, and the boom knocks Sarah over. And Ellie over board. I freeze. 

“Mann über bord!” Julia’s cry rings out at once, and Kathryn’s head comes up sharply. Not too far from the English version, a detached part of me muses as I watch Julia lock eyes with Kathryn for a moment. Julia flicks her head sideways, Kathryn nods tersely, and Julia slips off her shoes and T-shirt, takes a life buoy, and jumps in after Ellie. 

“Sarah, grasp the main sail boom – get a grip on that thing”, Kathryn orders, striking the smaller sail, “Anna, get over there and help her, we need to get it into the wind again. Marie, on my mark I need you to help turn us around by taking the rudder as much to starboard as you can. Marie!” The sharp snap of her voice cuts through me, and I shake myself free. 

“Aye”, I shout back. “Starboard.” ‘Steuerbord’ – right side. Oh, the things you learn. That ‘Backbord’ is simply ‘port’ has been more difficult to remember… I pull my thoughts back to the task at hand. 

Having accomplished her own task, Kathryn scrambles over to Anna and Sarah, who are fighting to get the main sail under control, and, helping, starts to talk to them urgently. At least we lost speed when we lost the wind, but still our momentum has taken us far too far. I won’t look back. I know Julia’s a fighter. And she has that life buoy. And they’re both wearing lifejackets. And…

“Mark!” I push the tiller as far to the left as I can while the three take the boom over to the other side. It’s violent. The boat heels heavily, shudders, and for a sickening moment I see us capsizing – another word that comes to me, ready as you please. The three of them are hanging to the main sail with everything they have, while the tiller bucks in my hands like a live thing. I grit my teeth and keep it steady, grateful for once for my weight. Then the wind catches and the boat rights itself a little. 

“Now, we need to tack a little, to get back to them. That’s going zigzag. Marie, I’ll need you to compensate the angle again, only more so than before.”

“Aye”, I respond automatically, just as I did to Julia’s commands. Oh, how we’ve laughed, and made a circus of it. And how seriously she insisted we did it anyway. Just like wearing those lifejackets, really. Dismissing the thought, I quickly translate Kathryn’s instructions.

“Whenever I give the signal, we’ll move the sail over and you push the tiller over. On my mark-” We’re veering away from them at an angle, but Kathryn knows what she’s doing; somewhere, there’s a logic behind all that, a logic I can trust. Slowly, slowly, we’re getting closer to our two friends’ height, if not their actual position.

“Mark!” Again, we turn. 

“Mark!” Again. We’re overtaking them, but Kathryn isn’t turning us around, why doesn’t she turn?!

”Mark!” We must be at least fifty meters away from them by now, Kathryn, God, what are you doing? I grit my teeth. God, but I hope – she has to know what she’s doing. She knows how to sail. _Keep going. Trust her_.

“Now, on the next mark we’ll do a full turn over our starboard side again. Then we’ll try to catch one good blast of wind and drop sail immediately, drop anchor if necessary. We want to move in none too quickly, or we’ll just rush by them again. Understood?” ‘Aye’ from me, and a twofold ‘aye’ when I’m done translating, and again, she shouts out the mark, and again I throw myself across the tiller to do my bit. 

The last meters are agonizing. The main sail is taken down quickly, and we’re losing speed at a rate that has me worrying we’ll stop too soon. I use it the tiller gently now, gently, to bring us as close as I can against the push of wind and current, so concentrated on one big and two small dots dancing on the waves that I almost jump out of my skin when I feel a hand on my right shoulder. Kathryn stands next to me, eyes on the same bit of lake as mine, and I grit my teeth again. Anna is at the bow now, rope in hand and ready to throw, and I guess Sarah’s behind Kathryn, manning the stern in like manner. Four sets of eyes never waver. 

“Anna, don’t throw too soon or the line will fall short”, Kathryn calls out, and Anna nods sharply.

“Aye!”

“Marie, bring the rudder around again on my mark, to brake us. Again, as hard as you can, alright?” Her voice is crisp, and her steady hand on my shoulder is all that keeps me from screaming with nerves.

“Aye”, my voice is soundless, but she squeezes my shoulder again and I know it’s alright.

Anna throws her line. “Mark.” Again, I throw myself to the left. I lose Kathryn’s hand, but we also lose speed and come around. Suddenly, there’s a drag, and a shout of “YES!” We’ve got them.

I let go of that blasted tiller. I can’t help myself; I blunder around Kathryn, grab the line from Sarah’s hand, look over the water to Julia who has Ellie on the buoy and clings to its side and gives me a thumbs-up. I start to pull. I pull. I pull, legs braced and weight low, pull and pull them in, pull until the buoy bumps into the boat’s side, lean over and catch Ellie’s arms and the wild look in her eyes, pull and she doesn’t let go of the buoy, and I cry a wild cry and pull some more and the buoy catches on the rail and she releases it, and then she’s over the rail and I throw myself backwards, and we land in the bottom of the hull and I’ll never let her out of my sight again. 

She can’t swim, you see. 

Oh, how I teased her when I found out, all those years ago, and now she’s shivering and heaving and clinging to my arms just like she clung to that buoy, and God, I’ll be bruised tomorrow but I couldn’t care less.

Her eyes are wide and frantic and unseeing, her breaths irregular, her small hands clenched into my shirt front. She’s trembling violently, crying, gulping big mouthfuls of air every once in a while, obviously in shock. My training kicks in and I look up, searching – and there’s Anna, bless her, passing over a woolly blanket. Out of the corners of my eyes, I see that Julia’s being seen to by Sarah, while Kathryn’s flagging down a passing motorboat. Alright, so. I wrap Ellie in the blanket, a steady stream of soft, soothing words accompanying my motions, until she sits in my lap and I’m forcibly reminded of how I held Kathryn like that, too, three days ago. Again, my head comes up. 

Kathryn’s eyes are on the motor boat that’s turned towards us, but then Julia, another blanket across her shoulders, steps up to her. They exchange a few words, then Kathryn nods and turns, and our eyes meet. For a long moment, the tableau holds, then her shoulders lose a bit of tension, one corner of her mouth comes up, and she nods again, once. I don’t know whether it’s acceptance or permission, but my attention turns back to Ellie instantly, regardless.

* * *

Marie’s at stern, legs dangling, eyes staring, teeth clenched, shoulders so tight she looks half a head smaller than she is. When Kathryn steps up to her and touches her shoulder again, she flinches, violently, then tries for a smile that’s more of a grimace, and moves a little to let Kathryn sit, eyes on the coast again.

“You did well, back then.” Another grimace. “Marie, you did. I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been there.” 

“If I hadn’t been there, it would have been you jumping in after Ellie, not Julia.” It comes out without emotion, and Kathryn looks at Marie sharply. The younger woman shrugs, eyes still straight ahead. “I saw your exchange before Julia jumped.”

“It was a logical decision.”

A huff. “Yeah.”

“Marie-”

“I’m alright, really”, Marie cuts in. “And it was logical.”

“I might not be a counselor, but I have eyes to see. You’re most certainly not alright, Marie.” For a fleeting second, when her words have Marie turn to her and Kathryn gets her first good look of Marie’s eyes, she’s taken aback. In a face rigid and empty, they burn into Kathryn’s with raw emotion. 

“They’re both fine, Marie.” Another emotion enters those eyes. ‘Yeah, right.’ Marie doesn’t need to say it. “They are”, Kathryn emphasizes. “They’ve changed into our biking gear, they have the blankets, and we’re being towed back to Salò. The skipper will even take us back to Garda, afterwards. Everything’s alright, Marie.” Her words don’t have the desired effect. Far from it. Marie just turns her head back around to stare at the coast again, shoulders still hunched as if in pain. Well, she is, isn’t she? _Your turn now, Janeway, counselor or no. Think of something._

“Marie, look at me.” Command, delivered in command voice. It’s either that in itself, or its sheer unexpectedness, but Marie’s head does snap around, eyes wide and blazing. Before she can say anything, though, Kathryn has caught her face and touched forehead to forehead. Marie’s hands claim her wrists. They don’t try to pull free, though, just clench, almost painfully hard. 

“She can’t swim”, Marie whispers, eyes closed, after a few moments.

“I know. Julia told me.” This time, Kathryn’s voice is as low and soft as she can manage. “But she’s safe now. We did it.”

Marie shudders, then laughs a strangled laugh. “That’s not it.” And again, more quietly. “That’s not it.”

“Well, th-” _hush, Janeway. Don’t push_. She falls silent. Marie shudders again, and her grip on Kathryn’s wrists loosens a bit, then falls away entirely, hands landing on thighs. When Kathryn pulls Marie into a close embrace, they come up and fall lightly on Kathryn’s waist.

“It wasn’t me, you understand?” Still, Kathryn keeps her silence. One, she is not sure that she does understand, and two, this is too delicate for a wrong word, and she is, after all, a captain, not a counselor. 

“It wasn’t me.” Another shudder, almost convulsive this time, and the feel of Marie’s face on Kathryn’s shoulder gains a new quality. Wetness. She’s crying. Marie’s crying. Marie never cries, and she’s crying. Kathryn tightens her arms, tries to let body language soothe where words fail her. And still Marie’s shoulders are tight as drums, almost trembling. Then she pulls away from Kathryn.

“No.” Kathryn’s left comes up to cup Marie’s face again. 

Marie’s answering frown and tilt of head are too… polite, for all that her cheeks are still wet. “No?”

“You’re not getting away so easily, Marie Vey.” 

This time, Marie’s smile is more than a grimace, but still less than believable. “I’m fine, Kathryn. They’re fine. We’re alright, as you said.”

“Oh, bullshit, Marie.” Oh, how those eyebrows come up. “You’re not fine. You’re far from fine. Tell me what’s wrong. Please.” 

Then a shout from the other skipper cuts through the air, and their reaching Salò gives Marie ample excuse to withdraw entirely. 

~~~

It’s only fitting. Marie is tossing and turning and mumbling. Oh, she’s held up well all evening, cooking dinner with the asparagus they’d bought in the morning, arguing that it would be a shame to waste it. Hell, she’d chopped and stirred and chatted as if nothing had happened at all, and it had even been tasty. But her eyes had been too bright, and her attention to Ellen almost painfully solicitous, and now she’s having nightmares, and Kathryn can’t sleep for it.

There’s light in the kitchen when Kathryn goes there to get a glass of water. Ellen perches on one of the chairs, legs drawn up and arms around them, glass of her own in front of her. Her head comes up as Kathryn enters. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

“Marie’s dreaming very loudly.”

Ellen’s grey eyes turn back to her glass. She touches its rim with a finger, plays with it idly. “Anna told me how you brought the boat around. I…” She meets Kathryn’s eyes squarely. “Thank you.”

Kathryn inclines her head in acknowledgement. “How are you?”

This wins her a small laugh. “Still shivering. I thought… God, it sounds so melodramatic.”

“You thought you’d die.”

Ellen rolls her eyes and grins lopsidedly, but doesn’t dispute it. “I’ve never been so frightened in my life. I hadn’t felt comfortable about going onto that boat in the first place, but you all were so enthusiastic, so… When I fell in, I froze, at first. And then something… took over, whatever it was, and it… fought, to stay up; I kicked and kicked, you know. And… and then Julia grabbed me and pulled me up on that buoy… I’d have thought that, if anyone, it would’ve been Marie who’d…” Her voice trails away, and she frowns at how Kathryn’s expression coagulates. “What?”

“ _That’s_ what…” Kathryn exhales suddenly, clamping down on a comment or two. “Come with me.” She heads back, ignoring Ellen’s shocked intake of breath at the coldness of the goddamn metal staircase against her bare feet.

Marie’s still fighting with the sheets. Ellen steps up to the foot of the bed, watching with unreadable eyes. _Now what, Captain Counselor?_

“She’s called out for you”, Kathryn blurts. Ellen’s eyes flick over, a question in them that Kathryn can’t answer, not to herself, and certainly not out loud. “I tried to wake her, or calm her down, but she’s too deeply asleep. I think it would be good…” she swallows. Does she really? “Good if you were here when she wakes up.”

Ellen’s clearly asking herself the same question. Does she really?

“I don’t know.” It’s a sigh, a rush of pent-up breath. “But, Ellen, she… she wouldn’t talk to me about it, and… you know her better than I do.”

And it had hurt so much, seeing Marie cradle Ellen, stroke her hair, whisper soft words of reassurance. It had hurt because it had reminded Kathryn of a similar embrace, a few days ago; had hurt because it had looked so much… closer, so tender, so… so maybe she _had_ felt jealous. _Ellen_ wasn’t leaving in a few days, after all. And then she’d felt so bad for it. And then angry for feeling bad, and then Marie had pulled away from Kathryn’s embrace when Kathryn had only tried to help. And now Ellen, Ellen is standing at the foot of the bed, ‘closer than I ever thought friends could be’-

Suddenly, Marie’s head comes up with a strangled cry of “Leelee!”, and Kathryn flees.

* * *

I can’t breathe. Something binds my legs, and there’s a weight on my chest, and I know I have to reach her and I can’t, I’m stuck, she’s calling me-

“Leelee!” – and then there are small hands on my cheek, my neck, and they slip around me and hold me close, and I let myself be cradled for a moment. But then I realize- “Kathryn, I…”

“Hush, Reeree.” Not Kathryn. Leelee. But… how? My body reacts without waiting for an answer, though, draws my arms around her, buries my head in her shoulder, shuts down my brain. It feels right, too, for a while, to cling to her like that. Then an icy feeling runs down my spine, not thought so much as hunch. I pull away from her. “Kathryn”, my eyes search the bed. “Where?”

“Don’t know. She left-” My stomach turns a somersault. I don’t hear the rest of Ellie’s words, fighting with the sheet again as I struggle to get up, almost trip over them on my way to the edge of the bed, then I’m free of the blasted fabric and fly through the door. 

The kitchen is empty. The hall is empty. My heart sputters and stops. _God, no._

 _Please, no._ Back into the kitchen, see Ellie at the door to the staircase, turn around, breathe. It comes out a sob, mixed with a hiccup, and I wonder how I can produce such silly sounds when Kathryn’s gone.

Then a sound ceases that I hadn’t really heard, and the bathroom door opens, and my knees buckle. That goddamn sob is still in my throat and I can’t get anything past it, not even breath. Kathryn looks at me as if thunderstruck, then something shudders over her face. She walks towards me, and why doesn’t she run, God, but at least she’s still here and not-

Something gives, and I give in. On that cold, black-and-white-tiled, Italian kitchen floor, I dissolve into the sorriest heap of tearful blubber that ever there was. I crumble, and they catch me, both of them, they’re both here with me and I haven’t lost either, and although that should, by right, be a happy thought, I can’t help crying, and crying, and then crying some more. 

I haven’t cried like this for ages. I didn’t cry like this when Kathryn disappeared. I did cry, yes, but not like this. And certainly not in front of anyone. Oh no. People can see my eyes mist over in a movie for all I care, but I do my real crying in private, this sort of crying. Not even Ellie’s seen me cry like this. Ever. Her eyes tell the tale, too, when I look up at her. She’s… stunned? It makes me roll my eyes and smile at her, and she just shakes her head, slowly. Stunned, so. Alarmed, maybe, even.

“Come on, Leelee, even I lose it sometimes.” My voice is a sorry attempt at lightness, and she doesn’t buy it, and neither does Kathryn, who’s cradling me as I’d cradled her, as I’d cradled Ellie. Her lips are on my hair, and her arms around me are so tender that my eyes grow wet again. Ellie is kneeling a little to the side, and I reach out for her and close my eyes when she takes my hand. Searching a bit around my waist, I find one of Kathryn’s to hold in my other.

Contentment doesn’t stop the cold, though, and after a minute or so, I stir and straighten, loath to pull away entirely, but not happy on the floor, either. I never let go of either hand, awkward though it is to stand up like that, and when Ellie looks at the two of us, eyes forlorn, still speechless, and shivers again, there’s not a chance in hell that I’ll let her go back to her bed just like that. 

I pull her close to me. Kathryn, at my back, stiffens a little, but I keep her hand and squeeze it, as she squeezed my shoulder this afternoon, and feel her step to my side after a moment. I’m still not quite certain what she’s making of all of this, but she does offer solace with a hand on Ellie’s arm, and Ellie doesn’t shrug it away. Then again, maybe Ellie doesn’t even notice, she’s trembling so hard. 

This time I don’t talk to her. I’m better with just… being. Being someone to cling to, being reassurance, and solidity, and friend. The way Leelee does cling to me makes me suspect that she needed to find that again, after my crying spell shook her like it did, role reversal that it’s been. When she lets go, I search her eyes for signs that she’s found it. 

Her smile is watery, but true. She’ll be alright, it says. Hell, but she’s strong. She’s found her feet again after having been ditched, even if she’s not quite back to ‘normal’ yet. She’ll find her feet after nearly drowning, too, her smile says, and I know that if she can’t do it on her own, she’ll go for help, mine or someone else’s. Finding a smile of my own is easy with that knowledge, and I return it to her wordlessly.

~~~

Back in the bed, Kathryn is awfully quiet. 

“I’m sorry.”

She looks at me, eyebrows knitted in a slight frown. “What for?”

“I shut you out this afternoon. And… just now, I…” hard to find words, for what happened just now, and what I’m sorry for, about it. Keep it simple, then; it’s worked before. “You were there and held me, and the next thing I do is embrace Ellie like that.”

“She needed that. You both did. Your friendship did.” I look at her sharply and she shrugs. “She was terrified when you broke down. I’m willing to bet she never saw you like that.” 

I sigh. “Tell you something about social workers. People always expect you to have a grip on yourself. You’re not allowed to break down and bawl like a baby, you’re supposed to have it together.” There’s a droll quirk to her mouth, and I join in. “Sounds familiar?”

“Quite.”

“Thought so.” Nevertheless, that’s not enough explanation, not tonight. “Ellie’s been… brittle, for a long time. So I’ve been, well, solid, for her. A pillar of strength, isn’t that the expression?” Kathryn nods, as serious as I. “I still remember when I saw my parents cry for the first time, and how it shook me. Right now, Ellie looked like I’d felt then.” 

Again, Kathryn nods. Her eyes grow distant for a moment, return to me. “I understand. And it’s alright; I’m not jealous, you know. But I…” 

“You’re envious.” It’s not a question, and it doesn’t need to be. I can see it in her eyes. I’ve seen it in there before. “Kathryn, we…”

She waves a hand in one of her dismissive gestures. “I know. You’ve been friends for-”

“The point is”, I interrupt her, “ _we_ could get as close as this, too, I think, you and I. If not for… circumstances.” There. I’ve said it. Her eyes darken. “Hey, Kathryn, you can find someone to get so close to, too.” I suppress the words ‘even if it can’t be me’. Too, too cliché. “It’s just a matter of wanting something and pursuing it, and you’re good at that.”

Kathryn holds her breath for a moment, then exhales explosively. “Being so close to someone _is_ enviable. But if you lose them…” 

I’m actively trying not to think about it and still my throat constricts. Point proven. “Still.”

“‘Yes’ to pain?” Her eyes hold mine for a moment, then drop to the sheets when I nod. She’s silent for a long time, but I’m pretty certain there’s something else on her mind. When she finally does say something, I have to stifle a smile. “Your nicknames…” She must have heard them this afternoon.

“Leelee and Reeree?” She nods, eyes still on her hand, fiddling with a fold of cloth. “Daft, eh?” I grin, rolling my eyes a little sheepishly.

“Sweet, rather.” Then she smiles at me, a small crinkle of a corner of her mouth. “In a slightly silly way.”

“Right”, I snort. “She started it.”

“Oh?”

“You see, I… sometimes I can’t help mothering people-”

It’s captivating how her raised eyebrow can turn from curious to ironic in an instant, just by how her eyes change. “Really.”

I grin, but go on without missing a beat, “-so she… she started to call me Mama, to tease me.”

“And…?”

“Well, Mama – Reeree. Marie. From there to Leelee wasn’t too far.” I shrug. 

She rolls her eyes. “Alright, let me rephrase what I said. It is sweet”, she holds up her hands and turns her head slightly, and I could kiss her, the motion is so _her_ , “but in a completely daft way.” I do kiss her, for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mini-dictionary:   
> “Qualcosa per la nostra colazione, signora?” - Something for your breakfast, ma'am?  
> “Fruhstuck” should read "Frühstück", of course - breakfast  
> “quanti personi?” - how many persons?  
> “Sei personi” - Six persons  
> “Siete tedesca, vero?” - You're German, aren't you? (Formal mode of address)  
> “Caterina – bienvenuto. Allora, abbiamo prosciutto cotto e crudo, mortadella, salame, qualcosa di piu?” - Caterina - welcome. Well, we have prosciutto and cooked ham, mortadella, salami, something else?  
> “Vabbene, vabbene… allora, questo è Monte Veronese vecchio, molto tipico della regione. Provalo, provalo; degustalo, Caterina, vai.” - Good, good. Well, this is old Monte Veronese, very typical for this region. Try it, try it; have a taste, Caterina, go on. (informal mode of address)  
> “Grazie mille.” - Thanks a lot (you might also see this as Mille grazie; both can be used.)  
> “Delizioso” - Delicious. Of course.  
> “Si, è buonissimo, vero? Ebbene. Questo qui, c’è Ubriaco…” - Yes, it's very good, isn't it? Well. This, here, is Ubriaco…  
> “Vorrei un caffè, per favore.” - I'd like a (cup of) coffee, please.  
> “Questo è tutto?” - This is all?


	7. April 30th

“You’ll never guess what I’ve planned for us today”, I dangle in front of Kathryn, and she bites amiably enough. Well, she should, after how I’ve woken her.

“Well, what _have_ you planned?” She strokes my shoulder lazily, then her hand slides lower and I’m beginning to wonder whether- but no. The train’s going at nine, and we have to get to the station.

“Not telling!” Oh, she bites me for real, for this, and I jump out of bed and laugh all the way through bath and breakfast. 

~~~

She still doesn’t have a clue where we’re going when we’re on the train. She’s good like that, brava Caterina. So when, about ten minutes before we arrive, the view from the window changes to an expanse of water rather than fields and roads, and her jaw drops to the floor, I’m completely delighted. 

“Don’t tell me we’re…” she swallows, hard. “Don’t tell me we’re going to…”

It’s sweet how she can’t bring herself to say it. “Venezia”, I nod. “La Serenissima. Oh yes indeed.” Her reaction is more than I’d bargained for, though. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head as if to shoo a fly and replies “nothing” breezily, followed by a flick of her eyes; the train is full with tourists, recognizable by backpack and city map. Just like us. And probably English-speaking. I get it, and nod and smile, and she nods and smiles and looks out at the lagoon again, eyes misty.

As soon as we’re out the train station, though, I turn her around. We’re about as alone as can be, on a Monday morning, in April, in Venice, Italy. “It sank. Almost a century ago. It’s gone.” Her voice is clipped. It’s my turn now to collect my jaw off the floor. “Oh, we have simulations of it. I’ve been there, on the hol- oh, you know, once or twice, and it was… amazing, and it broke my heart to think it was no more. And now…” she turns away from me to take in the square in front of the station, “now I’m here. I can’t begin to tell you how weird this feels.”

“Amazing, too, I hope?”

She turns back to me, smile blooming. “God, yes.”

I return it, full force. “You’ve seen the sights, then?” She nods. “Great. With what little time we have, we wouldn’t be able to visit a museum anyway.”

“How much time _do_ we have?”

“Eight hours, or more, depending on whether you want to be home in time for dinner, or have dinner here.” That was the deal with the girls, anyway. They’re out shopping today, and it wouldn’t have been fair to drag Kathryn along, seeing as she doesn’t have anything to spend, so I’d planned this, and boy am I ever glad I did. 

“Let’s go exploring, then.” I laugh at her exuberance, but truth to tell, I share it; I’ve never been to Venice before. Julia’s told me a few things and given me a map she had, but that’s about it. So explore we do, up and down bridges both famous and not, veering off the beaten track as often as we can, and going for a ride on a vaporetto down to the Public Gardens. Her eyes mist over when I unpack a small cardboard box and a can of whipped cream I’d bought when she hadn’t paid attention – I’d promised her strawberries, hadn’t I? Taste of spring, confirmation of summer to come. We make a picnic of it, eat them with our fingers, and I get juice and cream all over my t-shirt, clumsy as I am, and she laughs and laughs at me and kisses me, both our mouths full of sweet tartness. Things don’t get better than that, do they? 

Then it’s back to Piazza San Marco for a quick look inside the Basilica. For all that I’m not religious, I do like churches; and I marvel at its floor, incredibly uneven and bumpy, and still covered in mosaics in spite of it. We cross Canale Grande with a gondola, have a fellow tourist take our picture while doing so, and generally drift around afterwards, going this way and that, discovering the most kitsch, cliché, _touristy_ corners and intricate, quiet courtyards, and a garden full of lawn. Lawn! Not even twenty square meters, I’d guess, but even so – a new definition of luxury, surely, in a city built on stilts. 

Kathryn takes my breath away. She never tires, follows streets round corners on a whim, relying on me and my map not to lose her, watches kids play with a dog, and old ladies chatting on a corner, tastes offered morsels when we shop for lunch and, hell, even breathes deeply when a mail boat passes and diesel exhaust curls greasily around us. And she keeps touching things. Walls, statues, fountains, anchored ships’ rails, the trees we find, the bench we sit on for lunch. Alright, so I’m a bit like that, too; I never walk by Cologne Cathedral without touching, like an old friend’s shoulder, its grey, silent walls. But Kathryn? She takes this city in with all her senses, and her amazement, her wonder, her _happiness_ , shines in every movement. I watch her more than I watch Venice, after a while – after all, _I_ can return here, can’t I? And not to a holodeck simulation, either. But she – God, but I love her. Her eyes radiate joy, and there’s an unconscious smile playing around her mouth that’s the single most utterly loveable thing I’ve ever seen. And she’s much too intent on exploring to notice how I adore her, and that suits me, and my camera, just fine.

Still and all, after seven hours of this, I’m shot, and Julia has sung tonight’s restaurant’s praises so loudly all day yesterday that I manage to convince Kathryn of the idea of returning to Verona. On the train, it’s her head, though, that sinks to my shoulder and makes me smile, and a lovely guy opposite us, grinning like a cat at the conspiracy of it, offers with a few poignant gestures to take our picture. He’s a photophile, too, to judge by the effortless way he handles my camera. He reaches it back over with a wink, and it’s not until he rises in Vicenza that I notice the rainbow pin on his bag. The pictures he took, five in all, are gorgeous, too, sweet and full of love, and I’ll have every single one of them framed. 

The girls are full of shopping adventures, grand tales of bargain hunts and ‘you should have seen it’ when they pick us up at the station. The restaurant is indeed worth returning early: four courses of the most sumptuous pasta I’ve ever had and the most sinful chocolate cake conceivable. Afterwards we’re drooping in our chairs, moaning about how we’ll burst with the goodness of it, then Sarah, with a heartfelt groan, bends to reach into her bag. She hands Kathryn a small, rectangular, wrapped package, and I crane my neck to see what she’s unwrapping. I grin when I make it out: a copy, and framed, too, of our group shot on the glacier, all six of us grinning like mad and holding skies like trophies, mountains and blue skies behind us. Kathryn swallows and mutters something unintelligible when the picture suddenly changes and I snatch the thing out of her hands.

“Holy slideshow, girls – that’s digital! How… but… this must’ve cost a…”

“We all got one. Julia decided to buy the lot, as keepsakes”, Sarah explains. “Marie, yours is still in my bag.” I nod, relieved that they didn’t buy only the one for both of us, but hey, they _know_ that Kathryn’s leaving tomorrow, after all. Damn. I spent a wonderful day not thinking about this once. Damn. 

“I thought we should celebrate”, Julia’s voice cuts through my thoughts, “after… after what happened Saturday. Keep thinking of the good things that happened on this trip, not the bad stuff.” She looks at us a little defiantly, but Kathryn raises her glass.

“Hear, hear”, she toasts, and six glasses ring out above the table. Well, who am I to argue, right? Then, in my lap, the picture Julia smacking her lips during yesterday’s wine tasting fades out and is replaced by _motion_ , and I nearly choke on my wine. Once the swallow’s down, though, I whoop and press the thing to my chest laughingly. God, but Kathryn will kill me.

“What?” Her eyes are narrowing suspiciously already.

“Oh – ah… nothing.” I never claimed to be good at poker.

“Right.” She snorts and holds out a hand and I stall, wondering how long the video of the two of us, skating with interlocked skies, two identical, silly, loving grins on our faces, might be.

* * *

Kathryn’s fingers trail idle designs on Marie’s naked thigh. Venice, of all places. Kathryn hadn’t known it was so close. Well, she _had_ known it’d been in northern Italy, and she’d known _they_ were in northern Italy, but she hadn’t realized it’d take only ninety minutes by train to go there. Hadn’t realized it was still _there_ , a real place to visit. Good God, it really had been amazing. Stunningly, breathtakingly amazing, to walk these streets, see the palazzi… to take a vaporetto, a gondola… Granted, walking down Santa Monica beach had been remarkable, too, but Venice… is Venice, and Marie’s been at her side, not Tom and Chakotay and Tuvok. Marie, who’ll not be at her side tomorrow. Marie, who still tastes of strawberries even _now_ , for heaven’s sake.

“I don’t wanna close my eyes”, Marie starts to sing gently, quietly, her voice startling Kathryn’s eyes up. “I don’t wanna fall asleep ‘cause I’d miss you, babe, and I don’t wanna miss a thing…”

The song goes on in much the same vein, and Kathryn wishes Marie would stop, her heart’s aching so, and yet the song is quite appropriate, isn’t it? She doesn’t look away when her eyes fill with tears, nor when they overflow. It wouldn’t do, would it, hearing this? Marie ends with a wish to ‘stay here, in this moment, for all the rest of time’, and then she _smiles_ at Kathryn, and Kathryn rushes up to kiss her, hoping that touch, and kiss, and desire, might take away this longing. 

They burn together, burn with an intensity that should, by rights, scorch at least the sheets, but this time neither of them can find release. Kathryn thumps the bed in frustration and Marie looks up from where she is, and has the audacity to grin, chuckle, even. 

“You know”, she breezes, scuttling upwards and nestling next to Kathryn, “maybe it’s not to be, tonight. Maybe we should do other things.”

“Such as?” Kathryn can’t keep the resentment out of her voice. She’d been so close, Goddamnit. 

“Holy notchèd bedpost, Kathryn – you’re insatiable, aren’t you.” This is so goofy, and Marie’s voice so dryly teasing, that Kathryn can’t help but laugh. 

“Of course I am – Captain’s prerogative. I get to have what I want, as long as I want, as often as I want.”

“Wow. Really?” Marie’s eyes are alight.

“Well, no.” Kathryn thumps the mattress again, but this time, it’s for fun, and Marie laughs and gathers her into her arms, launching into a song about the universe, loopy and slightly inaccurate, and with a punch line she delivers so dryly that Kathryn snorts. Marie claims, very seriously, that she’s learned it in order to remember things like how fast Earth revolves, ‘nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned’, and Kathryn just can’t correct her, she’s so sweet.

Then, apparently emboldened, Marie sings her another one, with lyrics so risqué that Kathryn’s ears start to burn and she gasps with laughter. 

“People sing this? ‘Sit on my face and tell me that you love me’? You’re kidding me.”

“I never kid about sitting on people’s faces”, Marie shrugs, then grins. “It’s on my laptop. D’you wanna listen to it? Or to the rest of them?”

“There’s _more_?” 

“Of course. The Medical Love Song, the Decomposing Composers, the Accountancy Shanty …”

“Now I _know_ you’re pulling my leg, Marie Vey, there’s never such a song.”

“I’ll make a playlist and we’ll listen to it in the car tomorrow, never fear.” By now, Marie’s grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “You’ll see. Or hear, as the case may be. I just hope that Ellie won’t mind.”

Oh, yes. Things had turned complicated when Julia had been asked by her Italian friends to stay for a few days longer. Unwilling to turn the offer down, and with several more days off to spend anyway, she’d accepted and asked to be left the bike. That, in turn, had left five people, and their gear, and all they’d bought along the way in terms of wine and cheese and oh, too many things to count, with a car designed to hold four at most. So they’d found a rental, and then _Ellen_ had piped up with a desire to do still more shopping, seeing as she’d missed it yesterday, and Anna and Sarah had looked so shocked at the very idea that Marie had relented and offered to start the trip home _after_ a last shopping spree. Probably more out of her own desire to spend more time with Kathryn more than anything, Kathryn had surmised, yet she hadn’t been able to find fault with that. 

Ellen had stayed behind yesterday citing migraine, refusing to join the wine tasting and sightseeing. Kathryn, no stranger to incapacitating headaches herself, had commiserated deeply, even though she’d suspected that there’d been more to the refusal than that. All of them had, really, but Ellen had insisted they go without her, ostentatiously shuddering at the thought of drinking wine and dismissing the girls’ warnings to call immediately if something went wrong with a flutter of her hands. 

She had been a bit livelier when they’d returned, in fact, and had joined them in the big living room for a movie from her laptop, if slightly white around the nose at their big tales of how much wine they’d had and how good it had been. It had been, really. Kathryn truly wishes she could bring some of that… Amarone, wasn’t it?, and cheese, and pasta, because the thought of replicating any of this, alone in her quarters, seems… off. Better to open a keepsake bottle. And yet she can’t do even that, or can she? 

Marie had bought two crates, one each of a very smooth 2010 Ripasso and a sublime 2008 Amarone, and had looked at Kathryn as if about to suggest she take a bottle, but how, _how_ could she? Kathryn doesn’t want to think about leaving, and this is forcing her to think about whether or not she might be able to take things when she does. Good heavens, but Q is going to have hell to pay when she next sees him. Why the hell is he doing this?

At least now she has a keepsake photo frame, and even if that goddamn video is on it, and a series of pictures of her sleeping face on Marie’s shoulder, a series she has no idea of how it could have come into existence, she still hopes the thing won’t vanish when she leaves. 

“Penny?” Marie’s doodling now, all across her shoulder.

“Thinking of tomorrow.”

“Today, actually.” 

Kathryn groans, heartfelt. 

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t need to know that.”

“Sorry”, the younger woman repeats. “But right now it’s _now_ , not tomorrow, not today. And now’s not for sleeping, right?”

“Well, what’s it for then, if not sleeping nor…?”

“Shaggin’?” 

Kathryn yowls at the word, and Marie laughs, a very, very wicked laugh.

“You do realize what day it is, though?” Kathryn shakes her head, mystified. “Last night of April? The Devil’s abroad, and witches too, and we have to make noise to keep them away.”

“Noise.”

“Oh, you’ll think of something.” 

Kathryn squeals when Marie tickles her side. “You’re impossible.”

“Thanks. And I _was_ thinking of something completely different, I bet you anything.”

“Is it worth a penny?”

“Hell, Kathryn, it’s worth a fortune”, Marie brags, managing to swagger while prone on a bed.

“Oh, hark at her.”

Marie’s playfully nipping at that shoulder now, undeterred like Molly with her favorite toy. Then she rises on one elbow and plants a sloppy kiss on the underside of Kathryn’s right breast. Kathryn slaps her head lightly, laughing. 

“Good grief, Marie, now who’s insatiable, I ask you.”

“Social worker’s prerogative”, the younger woman mumbles around a nipple. “We’ve got to keep digging.” 

Kathryn laughs again, if a little breathlessly. “Not exactly digging, though, are you?”

“Huh, shows what _you_ know. I’m diggin’ you, I tell ya.” Kathryn’s pained groan is cut short, though, or rather turned into something, yes, completely different, when Marie’s fingers sneak between her thighs. 

“Will you-” Good gr- Kathryn gasps. Taking advantage of how distracted Kathryn’s been, feeling her fingers, Marie’s lips have wandered to that delectable place Kathryn’s never managed to recall the name of, back in Basic Human Anatomy, that huh- hollow at the base of her throat. Now – oh… now Marie’s flicking her tongue across the tendon there…

“Let’s scream those goddamn witches away.” Oh, Marie can do husky, too, and very well, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again, we have a few songs, but first: Venezia - go there, as long as you can. Having it be sunk is not as far-fetched as it might sound. Go there, and look for lawns and kids and old ladies, too, not only for bridges and piazze. 
> 
> That said, the soundtrack to Kathryn's and Marie's last night is _Don't Want To Miss A Thing_ , by Aerosmith, followed by the _Galaxy Song_ and _Sit On My Face_ (oh, yes, indeed!) by Monty Python.


	8. May 1st

We never slept last night. We laughed and kissed and, well, shagged the night away, and yes, at the end, Kathryn did shout out, once. Seeing who’s been sleeping one floor above us, I’d tried to be more restrained than at home myself, but, not to be outdone, she had me yelping eventually, too. Comments over breakfast are indulgent, though, but still Kathryn’s ears burn pink with embarrassment. It’s her skin. I tan easily, I’m already showing it after skiing, and now Italy, but Kathryn? Kathryn freckles, and blushes, and I love both to pieces.

Six women packing is not a sight for the faint of heart, but in the end we manage; Sarah and Anna leave first, Julia buzzes away shortly afterwards, and then Ellie, Kathryn and I take our leave our splendid villa as well, turning for Verona’s center instead of the highway. 

We take Ellie to see Casa Giulietta, ‘Juliet’s House’, complete with statue of the girl, tits gleaming from being fondled for luck, oh, and the fake balcony of course. You can’t visit Verona and not see the (alleged) place where Romeo propositioned, can you. Then we stroll along Verona’s beautiful streets, so proverbially Italian, narrow and winding with yellow-walled, green-shuttered houses and churches on every corner. 

I’m still shaken enough from nearly losing Ellen that I’d allow her anything. That’s why I end up, after our stroll, with several new t-shirts and a pair of pants, _and_ a pair of shoes, and my purse much lighter. Truth to tell, Ellie’s almost as laden with bags, and Kathryn loses her amused little half-smile only when Ellie tries to get her into even higher heels than she normally wears. I don’t know how Italian women manage, frankly – but then I haven’t worn heels since I grew past one seventy-five, so I guess my opinion doesn’t count. That’s how Kathryn and Ellie see it, anyway. Watching them totter about, it takes all my willpower to cling to my poker face, but I figure it wouldn’t be a wise move to lose it. It’s good to see them at ease with one another, at any rate.

It’s almost noon when we leave, which means we won’t be home until midnight at least, but it’s alright – it’s been grand spending time with these two, my best friend and the woman I love, and I don’t even care that part of me insists I’m procrastinating because I don’t want to see Kathryn go. It’s the thought of ‘how will it happen this time’ that I suppress.

Our car’s trunk packed with our bags, and all the stuff we bought today, and yesterday, and the day before that, and- oh, you know, we finally leave Verona behind and make our way north. Kathryn and Ellie, in the back seats, whoop with laughter at Monty Python antics – just as my laptop brims with music, Ellie’s has a wealth of movies and videos. It even entertains me – I don’t get to see the pictures, but I know the lines, and really, I laugh as much as the two of them, even at the Ministry of Silly Walks. Kathryn howls with laughter when dancing Yorkie Catholics praise the sacred sperm, and I remember her telling me she had Irish roots; she’s probably more of an expert on this than either Ellie or me. The video sets off a heated discussion about political correctness, something Ellie and I agree on being completely overrated, even dangerous. Kathryn, starship captain that she is, advocates diplomacy, but does admit to the thrill of scandalous exuberance every once in a while.

The trip itself is wretchedly uneventful. Ellie comes to the front passenger seat during a break, and Kathryn stretches out as much as she can on the back seat, catching up on lost sleep, and God, how I wish I could do the same, but Ellie can’t drive (that’s right: can’t swim, can’t drive. Can sing a little, though. More than a little, in fact, but she rarely owns up to that). At least she talks to me, keeps me awake with conversation. I’m even tempted to have a cup of coffee when we stop in Austria at the same café we visited eight days ago – really, really tempted, but a tentative sip from Ellie’s cup (oh, no. Kathryn wouldn’t give up hers, not even to let me taste. She _glared_ , at the very idea. Oh, how we laughed. She even joined in, after a second) sufficiently confirms that I still don’t like the stuff, so I – well, we all – take a catnap in the café’s parking lot instead, for about half an hour. It revives Kathryn enough to ask to sit in front again. I smile when she takes out my smartphone and runs the Planets once more, but I have to admit, the sight of Alpine peaks at sunset is twice as grandiose with the right soundtrack. 

We’re bickering about what to listen to next, after crossing the pass’s crest, and maybe I might have paid more attention, and maybe I was too tired still, but, truth to tell, that blasted tree blocking the road comes at me out of nowhere.


End file.
